Les Hommes de la Miséricorde
by Kchan88
Summary: AU. During the final battle Valjean saves not only Marius, but a few members of Les Amis, including Enjolras. While the surviving Amis grieve and try to hold each other together, Valjean must find a way to protect them from the authorities, including a still alive and increasingly unstable Javert. Brick, Musical, and Film based. Beta'ed by ariadneslostthread.
1. The Barricade

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Or Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hi readers! In this AU premise, Valjean manages to save a handful of Les Amis and things continue from there, turning the tide of the story for all our favorite major characters. This is a mix of book, stage show, and movie, with elements of each.

I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Barricade

Valjean still isn't sure how he managed it.

All he knows is that a bullet is flying toward a ten-year-old boy and he's launching half his body over the barricade wall and pulling Gavroche back, losing his grip and sending the little one flying back onto the concrete, barely missing the bullet himself.

"Gavroche!" the boy called Grantaire shouts, rushing over to him and scooping him up. "What the hell were you thinking! Are you alright?" He looks over at Valjean in utter awe, then looks back at the child in front of him.

"M'fine," Gavroche mumbles, rubbing the back of his head. "I was only trying to get the ammunition." He hugs Grantaire briefly, and catches Valjean's gaze, silent but very grateful.

"I know," Grantaire says, the usual playfulness gone from his tone. "But you aren't to go back out there. Our lives are one thing…"

"But yours is quite another," Enjolras finishes, looking both shaken but firm. "Back in the café with you. Do not come back out, do you hear me?" His tone is kind but there's also something formidable there, something that even Gavroche won't argue with.

The boy nods, still looking a bit defiant even as Grantaire follows him inside, obviously intending to watch him. Valjean looks around at the wide-eyed revolutionaries, seeing how upset they are at nearly seeing Gavroche killed before their eyes; they're like surrogate brothers to him.

"Thank you monsieur," Enjolras breathes, resting a slightly trembling hand on Valjean's shoulder. "I'm not quite sure how you did that. I couldn't forgive myself if something happened to Gavroche. Nor could Grantaire. Or any of us."

"I'm not sure how I did it either," Valjean answers honestly, surveying the young man before him, who he guesses is in his mid-twenties, though his face looks much younger, somehow. He's incredibly brave, that much is clear, he's passionate, intelligent, but underneath the courageous face he puts on for his compatriots, Valjean can tell he's frightened; not for himself, but for the lives of his brothers in arms.

Enjolras knows his friends were fully aware of what they were getting involved in, knows death is an inevitable part of revolution, but he also clearly wants to save as many of them as possible.

Valjean thinks France would do well to have more young men like them, young men who possess such compassion and empathy for those suffering around them.

"You are a blessing Monsieur Fauchelevent," Marius says, joining the two of them, and Valjean feels his heart twist in his chest as he imagines telling his sweet, beloved Cosette that the boy she loves is dead.

He cannot let that happen.

He won't.

Because if anyone in the world deserves happiness, it's her. He remembers her lost in the woods, shivering in the freezing cold wearing nearly broken wooden shoes, dirt streaked across her face.

His thoughts, however, are interrupted by the call of the National Guard.

"_You at the barricade listen to this! The people of Paris sleep in their beds! You have no chance, no chance at all! Why throw your lives away?"_

Valjean can't help but hear the pleading in the man's voice…he doesn't want to give the order to shoot…

But he will.

Because it's his duty.

Adrenaline races through Valjean's veins like electricity and he raises his gun, glancing over at Marius, who is nodding at Enjolras, a spark in his eyes.

"Let us die facing our foes, make them bleed while we can!" Enjolras declares, fire with just a pinch of fear blazing through his bright blue eyes, his gaze running over his friends, one hand resting on his heart.

"Make them pay through the nose!"

"Make them pay for every man!"

"Let others rise to take our place, until the earth is free!" Enjolras raises his arm in the air, and the other boys, though still afraid, join him, their eyes shining with determination. Enjolras has sent away those with wives and children, so it is just these few left. Grantaire comes back from inside the café, shutting the door closed on Gavroche and seizes a gun, his expression full of admiration for Enjolras.

They are bonded together, these young men, and they will follow their leader, will stand firm with the dream of a free France living in their hearts.

Unto the dream of freedom.

Unto revolution.

Unto death.

"Canons!" the national guardsman shouts, and Valjean inches himself closer to Marius, determined to drag him out of here should he fall.

The guns go off around him, the sound exploding in his ears. He gains a footing on the barricade itself, his bullets piercing several national guards in front of him.

And then the canon goes off.

"Move!" he shouts at Marius, who is so intent on pumping out bullets that he isn't paying attention.

Marius jumps, nearly colliding with Enjolras as the cannonball comes blasting through the barricade, sending four other boys soaring through the air.

They're dead before they hit the ground.

But there's no time to grieve, not yet.

National guards come sprinting through the hole in barricade, and what follows can only be deemed a blood bath, with men falling on both sides.

But there aren't more than twenty-five young men left and there are hundreds of soldiers now that this is the only barricade remaining, and Valjean's heart physically aches as they fall. It's raining blood, and he can't save them all.

Then he hears the sound he's feared most.

"Marius!" Courfeyrac shouts! "Duck!"

But it's too late.

A bullet pierces Marius' abdomen and he goes down, blood spilling forth. Throwing caution to the winds, Valjean rushes over just as the boy's eyes flutter closed, and he quickly checks his pulse.

He's alive, just unconscious, but that could easily change.

He spies a small entrance to what looks like the sewer and makes an instantaneous decision. He places Marius as gently as he can upon his own shoulders and makes for the entrance, pushing it open. None of the guards notice in the mayhem, and his eyes fall on the small knot of boys still left. He pushes Marius inside the tunnel and calls out to Grantaire, who is nearest him.

"Grantaire! Bring Gavroche here, and we'll escape through the sewer. The barricade is overrun. There's no need to lose your lives here!"

Valjean isn't sure if Grantaire will convince the other boys, isn't sure if he'll come himself, but he does go to retrieve Gavroche and shields him with his own body before depositing him in the sewer tunnel next to the unconscious Marius. Enjolras spies them, taking in the situation, a plan forming in his eyes.

Valjean watches the thoughts and emotions flit across the boy's face; He desires revolution for the people of France with every fiber of his being, desires victory so that change can take root, but he also knows this barricade is lost; but his love of his friends, his yearning to save them, triumphs.

If he gets them out, they can live to fight another day.

He places himself in front of the sewer opening, gun poised.

"Grantaire, follow Gavroche, he might need help through there. Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Jehan, Feuilly come!" Enjolras shouts, ushering them past him as he shoots into the oncoming stream of soldiers, the spattered blood of his dead friends dotting his blonde hair and dripping down his face.

Valjean watches as they all run past Enjolras one by one, doing as he says without question.

Only Jehan isn't quick enough.

He falls, a single bullet piercing his heart.

He's dead in seconds.

Enjolras reaches for him, desperately trying to drag him toward the sewer, but the ground is slick with blood, and he slips.

"Enjolras!" Combeferre cries, tears flooding his voice. "He's dead, Enjolras, come on!"

Enjolras pauses then backs up slowly, guarding their escape with his gun and the others back up to give him room to enter, his hands drenched with red from trying to save Jehan's already dead body.

Another gunshot flies through the air, hitting Enjolras deep in the shoulder.

And then a second in his thigh.

"Halt!" Valjean hears the army general call, and the flood of guards ceases.

Enjolras stumbles and falls, clinging to consciousness. Grantaire hands Gavroche to Courfeyrac and reaches out for Enjolras, the sound of a lone pair of footsteps approaching.

It's the army general.

He stares hard, gun pointed directly at them, but his eyes swim with conflict, with melancholy, and he hesitates. Enjolras winces, breathing in sharply with pain as his hand grasps Grantaire's arm, the two of them frozen in place in front of the guard.

A tension-packed moment passes, and Valjean's heart is in his mouth, threatening to leap out and sprint off down the street. With all of his years spent hiding from Javert, with all the years spent constructing a new identity and having multiple houses for an extra precaution, he's used to this feeling, but it doesn't mean that makes it any easier. Even in the convent he'd been constantly on his guard.

"They've gone into the café!" the army general shouts, lowering his gun, pushing Enjolras onto Grantaire's shoulders and shutting the door to the sewer just as another flood of his men come running over the barricade.

They're left in the darkness now, left in the overpowering stench, but Valjean doesn't move until he hears the footsteps pass them as they follow their commanding officer's fake trail back into the café.

It's an act of mercy from an unexpected source, but Valjean silently thanks the unnamed solider.

Thanks God.

He shifts Marius onto his shoulders, mirroring Grantaire's stance with Enjolras, whose eyes fall closed, the pain sending him spiraling into unconsciousness.

But he's still breathing.

Gavroche's voice cuts into the silence, and the always courageous child finally allows a tinge of fear into his voice. His gaze flits back and forth between Valjean and Grantaire.

"Are they alive?" he whispers.

"Yes, Gavroche," Grantaire says, keeping his own terror in check and holding out Enjolras' limp wrist for Gavroche to touch. "See? He's still got a pulse."

Gavroche nods, then reaches over to do the same with Marius.

"How do we even get out of here?" Courfeyrac asks, voicing the question that everyone else is thinking. "The Paris sewer system, it's like a maze."

"I'm not sure," Valjean admits. "But it was the only way out of there." He pauses, soaking in their grief for their friends, their grief for the loss of their revolution.

"Joly, Bousset, Bahorel…Jehan," Combeferre whispers, their names sounding like a prayer on his lips. "So many dead, I don't…" he trails off, eyes falling first on Marius, then on Enjolras, their fallen leader, his medically-trained brain assessing their injuries and the very obvious risk for infection inside this place.

"I know," Valjean says, gentle. "I know. But right now we've got to concentrate on getting out of here. You'll show me the way to Marius' grandfather's house..."

"Marius' isn't welcome at his grandfather's house," Feuilly points out. "They've had a falling out."

"I think you'll find he'll change his mind when he sees the state of his grandson," Valjean says kindly. "We will at least try. The rest of you shall stay with me."

"You have room for all of us in your home?" Grantaire asks. "A place for Enjolras to recover? They might not have the information to come hunting all of us, but they know who Enjolras is, he's on every list in Paris."

"You'll be safe, all of you," Valjean assures him. "I promise."

"Monsieur," Grantaire presses. "Why are you being so generous?"

Valjean turns to him, knowing it's only fair that they don't quite trust a stranger in the midst of their tightly knit camaraderie.

"My daughter Cosette, she loves your friend Marius here," Valjean says, a small smile on his face, a strange sadness mixing with a strange sort of joy in the pit of his stomach. "How could I be anything but generous to his friends?"

They soak in his words, terrified but trusting him.

Because who else do they have to trust now?

"I think I might know a way out of here," Gavroche pipes up. "I come down here sometimes."

Valjean finds he doesn't want to think about why a child would come down into the sewers, so instead he allows Gavroche to direct him from atop Courfeyrac's shoulders, and leads them deeper into the darkness.

And hopefully toward the light.

A/N: Side-note- my characterization of the national guard is based on Hadley Fraser's very interesting portrayal of said character in the Les Mis film. To me, it just really looked like he didn't want to shoot those boys, and I'd never imagined it like that before, hence the idea for that bit in this chapter.


	2. Evading the Inspector

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

Chapter 2: Evading the Inspector

It's darker in the sewers than Grantaire expected.

Although the stench is just as terrible.

Not that he's spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the Parisian sewer system, but still, he hadn't known it would be this horrific. They've been in the sewer for at least an hour, and at one point the disgusting water (filled with things Grantaire chose not to think about) had been up to their waists. Now it was merely at their ankles, and Gavroche swore the end was in sight.

But Grantaire's arms were sore, were screaming at him to put down his burden.

But he couldn't drop Enjolras.

Grantaire depended up on Enjolras' soaring faith, on his belief, on his passion for change, on their strange friendship, to keep going. He had leaned on Enjolras without Enjolras even fully realizing how much the most cynical member of their group needed him. Idolized him. The memory of his own near breakdown at the barricade, of Enjolras' bewildered, tentative, yet still warm embrace, struck him.

But now?

Enjolras needed him instead, and he wouldn't fail.

He couldn't let his wounds get any nearer this dirty sewer water than he already had.

"Do the best you can to keep that leg wound away from the water," Combferre had said earlier, eyeing Enjolras with concern. "It could get infected so easily, especially with that bullet lodged in there."

Grantaire wasn't sure how Monsieur Fauchelevent could carry Marius on his back without even looking winded; the man was unnaturally strong, especially for someone his age…he was certainly nearing sixty.

"Are you alright Grantaire?" Courfeyrac asks, his green eyes filled with concern and exhaustion. "Do you want me to carry Enjolras for a while?"

"No, it's alright," Grantaire answers. "You've got Gavroche."

"I could do it," Feuilly cuts in. "You've been carrying him ever since we entered this place. Enjolras isn't a big man, but you've also been wading through water."

But before he can answer, Fauchelevent turns to them.

"I see a light a few feet away," he says. "Stay here and let me go above to make sure it's safe."

The others nod in agreement, but something tells Grantaire he needs to follow their rescuer.

Being the cynic he is, he needs more confirmation that they can trust him. He might not be a fighter, he might not be an intellectual, but he will do what he can now, to protect his remaining friends, the friends who always took him in, despite how frustrating he knows he can be.

"On second thought," Grantaire says to Feuilly. "Could you take Enjolras for just a moment? I'm following him."

"Grantaire," Combeferre says, looking nervous. "Don't. He told us to stay back here."

"I want to know if we can trust him," Grantaire argues, placing Enjolras as gently as possible in Feuilly's arms. "I won't reveal myself."

Ignoring Combeferre's continuing concerns, he makes his way slowly to the chink of light several feet away, his gaze falling on the filth covered Fauchelevent, still holding an equally as filth covered Marius on his shoulders.

But there is a second man, too.

The man who'd spied on them, the man Gavroche uncovered.

The police inspector who Grantaire thought dead, killed by the very man who rescued them.

Well, apparently not.

Grantaire leans in closer, taking in every word of their conversation. The inspector looks furious, unhinged, but Fauchelevent looks nothing but patient.

Patient, yet desperate.

"It's you Javert," Fauchelevent says quietly, meeting the man's eyes directly. "I knew you wouldn't wait too long, the faithful servant at his post once more, but this boy's done no wrong and he needs a doctor's care."

Javert sneers. "He's an insurgent. Of course he's done wrong!"

"According to who?" Fauchelevent answers, the first tinge of anger lacing his tone.

"To the law!" Javert answers, his voice almost a cry. "I warned you, I would not give in. I won't be swayed!"

"Another hour yet, Javert!" Fauchelevent says, shouting now. "And then I'm yours! And all our debts are paid!"

Grantaire breathes in, trying to understand the bewildering situation before him; what the _hell _are they talking about? Why would the inspector be after this man, unless…

"The man of mercy comes again!" Javert taunts. But Grantaire can't help but think that he sounds like he's losing his grip, and he's wondering now, what happened between them behind the barricade. "And talks of justice!"

Man of mercy…

Had Fauchalevent spared the inspector's life? But he said "again"…clearly there is some kind of history here, some kind of history Grantaire is determined to find out.

"Look down, Javert, he's standing in his grave! Time is running short," Fauchelevent presses, stepping forward slightly, and Grantaire notices just how very intimidating the two men look; Fauchelevent tall, broad, and covered in dirt from the sewer, and the inspector, equally as tall and dressed all in black.

Javert pauses, his face twisted in what looks very much like mental agony, as if his brain can't process something.

"Take him, Valjean!" he says, waving his arm in defeat, eyes wild with rage at either himself, Valjean, or both, Grantaire isn't quite sure. "Before I change my mind! I will be waiting, 24601!"

Valjean?

24601?

What on _earth_?

Grantaire ducks when the inspector looks in the direction of the sewer, and watches the man who is apparently called Valjean walk past with Marius, obviously not able to turn around for them just yet.

24601…French prisoners were branded with numbers, if Grantaire recalled correctly.

This man…this Fauchelevent or Valjean or whatever his name, was as much on the run as they now were, had obviously invented a fake persona. Was he an escapee? Did he break parole? There were so many questions and so few answers, and yet this revelation, oddly, made Grantaire trust the man a smidge more than previously; he certainly won't turn them into the police or alert the National Guard.

But Grantaire wants answers.

He turns back around, returning to his friends.

"What happened?" Gavroche questions, looking at Grantaire with worried eyes. Grantaire wants to tell the child who is like a little brother to him that everything is going to be okay; but he can't.

Because there's every chance it would be a lie.

Enjolras looks paler than he did a few minutes ago, no doubt from blood loss, and Grantaire's heart twists in his chest. If they don't get out of here soon, both Enjolras and Marius will die.

"I'm not sure," Grantaire answers, taking Enjolras' still unconscious form back from Feuilly. "The inspector who spied on us, he was there, confronting Fauchalevent, but he let him go with Marius. I expect he'll be back for us as soon as the man is gone."

He doesn't tell them the rest of the story yet, knowing it's too complex to explain before Fauchalevent/Valjean returns.

And return he does, just a few moments later.

"It's all clear," he says, lifting open the grate, laying Marius on the ground and helping the boys out one by one.

Once they're all out, Valjean eyes Enjolras warily.

"We've got to make our stop at Marius' grandfather's home brief," he says. "Luckily the bullet went clean through Marius' abdomen, but his wounds," he continues, gesturing at Enjolras with worry clouding his eyes. "I believe the bullet is still lodged in both his shoulder and his leg. Do any of you know the address?"

"I do," Courfeyrac says. "But I'm still not sure Monsieur Gillenormand will be so welcoming."

"We shall try," he says, repeating his earlier words. "Lead the way, Monsieur Courfeyrac. We need to be careful, it won't be long until light."

Luckily, it doesn't take them that long; after about fifteen minutes they reach the large Parisian townhome that Marius abandoned for his single room in the tenement, where he'd met the so recently and tragically deceased Thenardier girl, Eponine. It's impressive, Grantaire thinks, for the first time really appreciating all the things Marius gave up for his political beliefs. Enjolras' rich father also scorned his son's beliefs and refused to speak to him; but his mother secretly sent letters, Grantaire knew, because he'd caught Enjolras reading one when he thought he'd been alone in the café.

He couldn't imagine how the person who answered the door would react at seeing a rag-tag group of barricade survivors covered in sewer soot and blood, but they approach anyway. Valjean knocks, waiting a few moments before a middle-aged woman, Marius's aunt, Grantaire guesses, opens the door.

"What in the world?" she asks, then looks down and spies Marius, her eyes instantly filling with tears. "Oh, Marius!"

"These boys are the only survivors of the barricade Madame," Valjean says in explanation. "And they have told me this is the residence of Marius' grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand."

"Yes, yes," she breathes, eyes running over Marius' unmoving form. "I am his aunt, my father is upstairs, still sleeping."

"We cannot be long," Valjean says, tone kind but firm. "I must get these other boys back to my residence and summon a doctor. I wanted to bring Monsieur Marius here first, as you are his family, but I've also been made aware that there is some opposition to his having been at the barricade in the first place."

"Come in," she says, opening the door wide. "Oh, Marius. Lay him in the parlor there. And the other boy, too, at least until you leave. I will go and fetch my father."

She's gone a few minutes, and all is silent until the voice of an elderly man echoes down the stairs.

"Marius!" the voice of Monsieur Gillenormand shouts. "Oh God, he has been to the barricades and he is dead! He is dead!"

He reaches them, not having eyes for anyone but his grandson. The other boys are astonished, Grantaire notices, and so is he.

But apparently near-dead family members trump politics in the eyes of this old man.

"Marius, you foolish boy," the grandfather whispers, feeling Marius' wrist and realizing he's still alive. "Oh, you are alive! Oh, thank goodness!"

At this, Marius opens his eyes ever so slightly, but Grantaire can still read the surprise within them. His eyes dart from his grandfather, to Valjean, to his friends, and to Enjolras lying on the couch beside him, still unconscious. He opens his mouth to speak, but his grandfather rests a finger to his lips.

"Don't speak," he whispers. "It will take too much of your effort. Your aunt has gone to summon a doctor, and you are safe here with me, I promise."

Marius visibly relaxes, affection for his grandfather resting in his eyes, but his voice, cracked though it is, pushes forth from his lips.

"You survived," he says, looking at the other boys. "But Enjolras…"

"I am taking them to my home," Valjean says, his voice somehow filling Grantaire with the sort of safe warmth he hasn't felt since being tucked into bed by his parents as a child. "And Enjolras will have the best care possible, I swear to you. And as soon as you are well you may come visit them," he pauses, looking at Marius as though he is seeing him for the first time. "And I shall send Cosette to see you."

Grantaire's watches Marius' eyes light up when realizes he's been saved by Cosette's father, and he can't help but be happy for his friend, much as he might have teased him just two days ago. The grandfather looks confused, but Valjean clears it up.

"I believe your grandson and my daughter have found love in each other," he says. "My address is No. 7 Rue de L'Homme Arme. Please let me know when Marius may receive visitors."

With that he beckons them to follow him, stopping to turn at the sound of Marius' voice.

"Thank you monsieur," he says to Valjean, his voice wracked with emotion. "Thank you for saving me. For saving my friends. There is nothing I can do to thank you enough."

Valjean smiles at him, nodding his head in response.

"We shall see you tomorrow," he says.

They exit, and Gavroche, so long silent (it's unusual, Grantaire thinks, but he's also probably traumatized) speaks up.

"Enjolras' leg," he says, pointing. "It's bleeding worse than before."

It's not until then that Grantaire realizes he's right; there's fresh blood on his shirt.

"Give him to me," Valjean says, reaching for Enjolras. "Come, my home is only a few minutes from here."

Grantaire does as asked, but as he meets Combeferre's eyes, he knows their beloved leader really is in danger.

Grantaire isn't always sure he believes in God, but he silently prays for Enjolras' life anyway.

He can't die. Not now, not after they'd escaped the barricade.

So when Valjean starts running, even with the weight of Enjolras on his back, they all run behind him.

* * *

A scream interrupts Javert from the task at hand.

A distinctly female scream.

His eyes are closed, his foot poised over the ledge, ready to surrender himself to the unmerciful depths of the Seine.

He pauses, knowing it is impossible to jump; he can't do it now, cannot possibly have someone witness his weakest moment. If he jumps with no witnesses they will write in the papers that he drowned, and that is acceptable.

He cannot have people knowing that he chose to take his own life.

He opens his eyes, heart racing so fast that he can see it beating through his shirt when he looks down. He turns around carefully, the rush of the river pounding in his ears…the river that was meant to be murky, cold escape from a world he can no longer comprehend.

"Monsieur!" the owner of the voices calls, coming closer.

She's young, Javert thinks, not more than eighteen or so, long blond hair flowing behind her.

But why, why did she have to be taking a stroll at this time of the night? What in the world could she possibly be doing out? She hardly looks the criminal type, yet Javert often finds that criminals commit the most heinous of crimes under cover of night.

"Monsieur!" she calls again, rushing up to him. "You…you looked about to jump off the bridge!"

"I…" Javert uncharacteristically stumbles over his words, and this only frustrates him further. "No. I was merely thinking."

The young girl's expression tells him she's not convinced, so he changes the subject.

"What are you doing out so late, madmoiselle?" he asks, clearing his throat. "There are all sorts of vermin out at this time of night, it isn't safe for a young girl."

"I was looking for my father and," she pauses, unsure of what to call the second person. "A friend," she finishes. But her attention is still focused on him. "You look affright monsieur," she says, brows furrowing in concern. "Are you sure you're alright?"

She's genuinely worried, Javert realizes. Her voice is soft, gentle, as though afraid if she says the wrong thing he'll return to his post and go sailing off the bridge to his most certain death.

Such concern for a stranger…

It reminds him of someone, reminds him of the very person who caused his distress, his near suicide.

But surely…

"I have merely experienced some distressing events this evening," he evades. "At the barricade in the center of the city. A policeman's work is never finished. Where do you live?" he asks abruptly. "I cannot allow you to walk home alone at this time of the night."

"The barricade!" she exclaims, ignoring his second question. Fear glistens in her eyes, and he's sure now that someone she loves was with the insurgents, but she won't speak further. He's a policeman after all, and it's his job to arrest any insurgent he comes across.

But she doesn't know he's already let one go with Valjean.

She recovers, but she's still twisting her fingers anxiously.

"I live at No. 7 Rue de L'Homme Arme," she says, finally answering his second question.

Javert has been socked in the stomach before, and the feeling he experiences now is exactly the same.

Perhaps worse.

This is Cosette.

This is the girl Jean Valjean took in as his own, the daughter of the prostitute Fantine. He's clearly failing at keeping his damned emotions in check, because she's looking at him in confusion.

The irony of this moment is not lost on him, because who would have thought this girl, the child of the man who drove him to such ends, would be the one to stop him from plunging into the river.

"I will escort you home," he says, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I'm sure your father will be home, and he will be worried."

Unless Valjean was somehow apprehended (though Javert doubts it), it is only a matter of minutes until Valjean will arrive home, and Javert has no desire to meet with him again.

Because he can't arrest him, can't send him back to the galleys.

Here he is again, at the precipice.

A convict was a good man, but he was still a convict. Arresting him was wrong. Not arresting him was also wrong. Javert shakes his head slightly, pain pulsing at his temples.

His life, his code, his foundation…is broken.

But he will walk the girl home nonetheless, because he cannot follow through on his impulse to end his life with her present.

She nods, consenting to follow him.

They walk in silence for whole journey because Javert's head is too full of thoughts to speak coherently, and he's never been eloquent in the art of small talk. Cosette is clearly pre-occupied with thoughts of her father, and Javert is sure that the boy Valjean carried on his shoulders is the love of the girl walking beside him. They reach the front gate of her home, and she turns to him.

"Thank you monsieur," she says, offering him a small, tight smile. "I appreciate you walking me home." She pauses, unsure, but presses ahead. "It's none of my business, really, and I don't know what's troubling you, but I hope you find some way to get through. Someone to talk to. It's worth a try, don't you think?"

_It's better than taking your own life_, are the words she doesn't say, but the words Javert knows she means.

She smiles again, and Javert feels an odd sort of warmth chipping away at his stony, trembling heart.

This girl has touched him, somehow.

Even if it's the last thing he wants.

The adopted child of a convict he's chased for nearly twenty years has touched him, and this only adds to his distress. She's perhaps one of the purest people he's ever come across, and there's only one answer for how she turned out that way.

Valjean.

He nods, unable and not willing to articulate any of his inner turmoil. "Good evening, mademoiselle," he says. "No more late-night strolls, alright? I'm sure your father will be home soon."

He watches her go, watches her close the front door of the quaint but spacious home, footsteps so light he barely hears them.

He could wait here for Valjean, could take him in as he'd sworn during their encounter outside the sewers.

_I will be waiting, 24601!_

But he won't.

He can't, and he hates himself for it.

But he'd also hate himself if he did.

He turns to go, pulling his black coat tightly about his shoulders against the wind.

A/N: I just wanted to thank all of you readers for the wonderful acceptance of this story, I'm so thrilled! I hope you continue to enjoy the story, and thank you for reading, reviewing, and following!


	3. A Doctor's Visit

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Wow, thank you all again for the wonderful response to this story, I'm so flattered! I apologize for not responding to reviews this time around, thing have been a bit hectic with work and the various different writing things I'm working on. But thanks a thousand times to all of you readers, I'm so excited you're pleased with the story! Just as a note, I'm pulling character interpretations and plot points from the various versions of Les Mis, namely the novel, the 25th anniversary U.S tour I saw here in DC, the 25th anniversary DVD, and the movie. It's sort of a mix of all those things, so I hope that works!

Chapter 3: A Doctor's Visit

Enjolras feels someone laying him carefully down on what feels like a chaise lounge of some kind, and his eyes fly open; he has no idea where he is.

Is he dead?

No, if he were dead the pain wouldn't this ferocious, this unforgiving, ripping at his insides like a knife.

He sits up so fast it makes his head spin, pain radiating through every inch of his body, red-hot and unyielding, blood running in sticky rivulets down his skin.

"Easy Enjolras, easy," a voice says beside him, gentle hands pushing him back to a horizontal position.

It's Combeferre, and he's covered in dirt, his light brown hair sopping wet with sewer water, blood smudged all over his clothes. Worry glistens in his eyes, brows furrowed so low they almost touch.

"Where am I?" he asks. "What…what happened? Where is everyone?"

The memory of Jehan falling, his eyes glossed over with death, flashes in his mind and he shakes his head, willing it away.

But it's only replaced with the knowledge that Joly, Bousset, and Bahorel are dead too, along with countless others students who joined their cause, banding together on the top floor of the Café Musain.

The weight of guilt falls on his chest like an anvil, and breathing suddenly becomes increasingly difficult. The air comes in shallow, rapid breaths, anxiety building a burning knot in the center of his stomach.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says again, ever patient. "Breathe for me, okay? It's alright."

It's not alright, Enjolras wants to say. It is so _very _far from alright.

"You're at Monsieur Fauchelevent's home. He's brought us here and says we'll be safe. He's the father of Marius' Cosette, can you imagine?"

"Marius," Enjolras whispers, sitting up again against Combefere's will. "Where is Marius?" He needs to know, urgently, where Marius is, because he remembers his friend falling beside him, blood pouring from his abdomen, a river of red.

"We took him to his grandfather's home," Combeferre answers, running a practiced hand up and down his friend's back, continuing his explanation upon seeing Enjolras's perplexed expression. "M. Gillenormand welcomed him with open arms; he's safe, and he'll be fine, in time. Courfeyrac and Feuilly have some small wounds that Monsieur Fachalevent is tending to, and Madmoiselle Fauchelevent is cleaning Gavroche up."

"And Grantaire?" Enjolras questions, a very faint memory of being carried in Grantaire's arms stirring in his mind. He remembers very clearly, however, the image of Grantaire grasping onto him, half shielding him while the army general stood before them, gun pointed directly over his heart.

But then he'd let them go.

_Why_ had he let them go?

"I'm here," Grantaire answers, entering the room with a bowl of water, towels, and what looks like a sifter of brandy.

"You saved me," Enjolras says, meeting his eye, the idea that Grantaire had been willing to die with him and for him sinking in, and he finds he's indescribably touched.

He also remembers Grantaire protecting Gavroche with his own body while he ran with him to the sewer. Though he'd only articulated his thoughts on this to their friends a few times, Enjolras has always suspected Grantaire capable of selflessness, of belief, if he would only realize it; otherwise, why would a self-proclaimed cynic befriend and place himself in the midst of a group of such fervent idealists? He's never fully understood Grantaire, has grown frustrated with him on countless occasions, but nevertheless, he still very much considers them friends.

And now with the memory of Grantaire breaking down and their subsequent embrace at barricade fresh in his own mind, with the knowledge that he'd carried him all the way through the sewer for God knows how long, Enjolras wants him to know that.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent did the saving," Grantaire mutters humbly, the usual amusement missing from his voice as he hands Combeferre the supplies. "I just carried you most of the way."

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that," Enjolras insists. "Thank you…" His next words are cut off by a wave of pain, rendering him silent.

"The doctor will be here as soon as possible," Combeferre says, in his line of vision again, though he notices it's getting blurry. "A doctor Monsieur Fauchelevent knows from his days working in the convent, so there's no danger to us. But in the meantime I need to stem this bleeding and clean these wounds, and I'm going to need Grantaire to help me. Is that alright?"

Enjolras nods, biting his lip against the pain that now refuses to abate.

"You need to drink this," Grantaire says quietly, kneeling beside the couch with a glass of brandy.

_Drink with me, to days gone by_…

The words of so many of his dead friends resound in his head, echoing into the crushing silence.

"I don't really…" Enjolras begins in protest. He drinks wine sparingly, and never hard liquor.

"Enjolras," Combeferre chides, his tone still overwhelmingly kind. "I know it's in your nature to be stubborn and that you don't care for liquor, but this is all we've got to help the pain until the doctor comes. I haven't got my medical bag with me. So please lay back and let Grantaire help you get that down."

Enjolras gives in, knowing his friends are right. Grantaire puts the glass to his lips and tilts it back; the strong liquid nearly gets coughed back up, but Enjolras closes his eyes and swallows, a sudden warmth spreading through his body.

"One more," Combeferre directs.

Grantaire complies, helping Enjolras swallow once more; he has to admit, it does take the edge off the pain.

Combeferre makes quick work of sliding off his tattered red jacket and his shirt so he can get a good look at his shoulder wound, and to Enjolras' surprise, he actually looks relieved.

"You're bleeding like a stuck pig here, but there's an exit wound, and that's a good thing," he says, taking one of the towels and wrapping it around the wound to stem the bleeding.

"I think I'm ruining Monsieur Fauchelevent's furniture," Enjolras remarks, feeling very much as if the world is spinning around him.

"I don't think he's the sort of fellow who will mind," Grantaire says, the ghost of a joke in his voice.

They all fall silent as Combeferre cuts away the square of trouser fabric surrounding the bullet wound in Enjolras' leg, and as soon as Combeferre puts the wet towel around the wound to clean the dirt away, Enjolras cries out, fingernails digging into the fabric of the chaise lounge.

"I know," Combeferre says, apologetic. "I know it hurts, but I've got to get started cleaning this, the bullet is lodged in there and the risk of infection…"

"I know," Enjolras says, closing his eyes for a moment. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout…"

"Enjolras," Grantaire says, the odd sound of a reprimand in his voice; usually it's Enjolras reprimanding him instead. "You've been shot. Twice. And you've got a bullet lodged in your leg. You've got every right to shout."

Combeferre continues wiping away the massive amount of sewer filth until there's a knock at the door. Enjolras watches a now clean Monseiur Fauchelevent stride forward and open, it, greeting a friendly looking man with greying hair and a large black bag.

"Monsieur Figueron," Fauchelevent says, greeting the doctor with a warm handshake. "Come in, please."

"You've got a young man with gunshot wounds?" the doctor asks, handing his coat and hat to Fauchelevent, eyes landing on the three boys in front of him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras spies Courfeyrac and Feuilly entering the room, clad in clean clothes that are at least two sizes too big for them, and coming down the stairs he sees the girl who must be Cosette, a hand resting on Gavroche's shoulder.

"Yes," Fauchelevent said, gesturing forward. "Monsieur Enjolras is just through here."

Doctor Figueron follows Fauchelevent into the little room off the entrance hall, and the small knot of boys parts, allowing him access to Enjolras.

"Hello there lad," he says, a sad smile gracing his features as his eyes take inventory of the injuries. "I see someone's already gotten started here."

"I'm a medical student monsieur," Combeferre pipes up. "I tried to stem the bleeding on his shoulder and clean the leg wound, but the latter is proving troublesome as I don't have any of my supplies with me."

Doctor Figueron nods, looking back at Enjolras, who regards him with wary eyes.

"I know all of you have been at the barricade," he says, his tone brimming with sympathy, making direct eye contact with his patient. "And I need you to know that you're safe here with Monsieur Fauchelevent and with me. I need you to relax so we can take care of these wounds, alright?"

Anxiety pumps through Enjolras' veins, but something about the doctor's voice, about the kindness practically emanating from Monsieur Fauchelevent, calms him.

"Yes," he says, nodding, watching Gavroche break away from Cosette and come to stand in the doorway, looking more solemn that Enjolras has ever seen him.

It's the cleanest he's ever seen him too, come to think of it, but Enjolras regrets now, not sending him away from the barricade, regrets that he's seen things no child ever should, but he knows in his heart Gavroche would never have left them willingly, knows he worships the ground they all walk on.

"I'm going to give you some Laudanum," Doctor Figueron continues, pulling a bottle out of his bag along with a teaspoon. "It'll help with the pain before I pull the bullet out."

"I don't think I…" Enjolras begins to say, but is promptly cut off by the glares of his friends.

"Trust me son," Figueron says, pouring a dose carefully into the teaspoon. "As much as I hate to say it, you're going to need this. Ready? This is a bit bitter."

Enjolras nods, still feeling slightly embarrassed as the doctor tilts the spoon into his mouth. The taste is actually horrifically bitter but he swallows anyway, somehow keeping it all down. He is very aware now, of everyone's eyes on him, aware of how incredibly vulnerable he feels.

"How about you start cleaning and bandaging his shoulder," Figueron says to Combeferre. "While I handle the leg?"

Combeferre nods, looking apologetic again as he meets Enjolras' eyes.

The laudanum mixed with the brandy quickly makes him hazy, and before he quite knows what's happened, his boots are gone and his bloody trousers cut away, leaving him in nothing but his underthings, utterly exposed.

He loves his friends more than his own life, but everything considered, he'd rather them not witness this. He shifts anxiously under everyone's gaze, wincing as the doctor cleans the skin around the wound with a burning antiseptic while Combeferre does the same with his shoulder. Fauchelevent, noticing his discomfort, turns toward the other boys.

"Alright, how about we leave Doctor Figueron and Combeferre to do their work and get some food in all of you?" he says, looking around at all of them with a fatherly expression.

They look about to protest that they can't possibly leave their friend, but Enjolras speaks first.

"I promise, I'll be alright," he says, catching each of their eyes for a moment, his voice feeling thick through the power of the drugs. "All of you should rest and eat."

Even now they follow his word; Feuilly shoots him a worried smile, Courfeyrac squeezes his uninjured shoulder, and Grantaire pauses for a moment before momentarily grasping his hand. For the first time in his memory, Enjolras sees a frightened gleam in Gavroche's eyes, watches as he leaves Cosette's side and takes Grantaire's hand, looking back one more time at Enjolras before they all exit the room.

"Cosette made a room ready for you upstairs," Fauchelevent says, hesitating in the doorway. "Some of the other boys will have to share, but you'll be comfortable here. And safe. I promise you that."

"Thank you monsieur," Enjolras whispers, emotion flooding him in the face of this man's generosity, his bravery…in the face of everything that has occurred in the past twenty-four hours.

He smiles and turns to go, closing the door behind him.

"Alright," Figueron says. "Are you ready lad?"

Enjolras nods, but he's looking at Combeferre; he's so used to being the strong one, always the one lifting everyone else up, always being the leader, but right now he's frightened, so when Combeferre offers his hand, Enjolras takes it, comforted more than he can say by his old friend's presence.

"Squeeze as hard as you like," Combeferre says, shooting him a half smile of encouragement. "I've got hands of steel. And bite down on this, so you don't hurt your tongue," he continues, signaling for Enjolras to open his mouth so he can place the thick cloth inside.

All Enjolras knows in the next moment is excruciating, violent pain, blurry images, and the sound of his own muffled cries that he can't hold back.

Then, all goes black.

* * *

Around an hour later Valjean raps lightly at his daughter's door, exhaustion pulling at his eyelids. At her call to enter, he opens the door only to see Gavroche fast asleep on a pallet Cosette has made, grapsing what looks suspiciously like Enjolras' red jacket. He's street-smart, that's for certain, but in the end, he's still just a child.

"I'm not sure it's sanitary, that jacket," Cosette says, brushing strands of Gavroche's soft blonde hair away from his face. "But I could only get him to let go of it to wash some of the dirt and blood off, and then he insisted on having it back."

Valjean smiles slightly, a pang of melancholy striking him at the ordeal these boys have been through, but not matter what the future holds, he does not regret for a moment rescuing them, no matter the trouble to himself.

"Papa?" Cosette says, her voice jolting him back to reality, fear swimming in her eyes. "Are you quite sure Marius is alright?"

"I promise you my dear," he says, sitting down on the edge of her bed. "He is in very capable hands. He's wounded, but he will heal. And I've asked his grandfather to allow you to visit tomorrow."

"You saved him," she says, gazing at him with the same adoration that was in her eyes on the day he found her lost and alone in the woods, had given her the doll that still rested on the shelf above her bed.

"How could I not?" he asks, feeling all his emotions brimming forth. "You love him. He loves you."

Her answer is an embrace so fierce that he's almost taken aback, but wraps his arms around her in return.

"You saved all of them," she says. "Marius' friends."

"There are still many dead, I'm afraid," he says, pulling her closer.

"But you saved who you could," she insists. "You put your life at risk, all so I could be happy with Marius. What on earth makes you so good, Papa?"

"I only want your happiness," he answers, evading the meat of the question.

"I have to be honest," she says, releasing him and looking up to meet his eyes. "I went out this evening, looking for you, and for Marius. I couldn't just sit any longer and wait. I didn't know where you were, and I was worried Marius had gone to the barricade to fight with his friends..."

"I'm not angry Cosette," he reassures her. "Worried retroactively, perhaps, but not angry."

"I saw someone while I was out, near the bridge," she says. "A police officer."

Jean Valjean's heart freezes, but he keeps his face arranged in such a way that Cosette doesn't notice.

"He looked," she hesitates, unsure. "He looked about to plunge into the Seine, but my scream stopped him. And then he told me it was dangerous to be out, and he walked me home. He looked so lost, papa, so broken."

"Did he give his name?" Valjean asks, but he already knows.

"No," she answers. "But he was dressed all in black, was exceedingly tall with his hair tied back. An intimidating man, I'd say. It was so strange, but I do hope he's alright."

The man fitting her description can be no one other than Javert, and Valjean can scarcely hide his shock. What would have possessed a man so driven by his principles to sacrifice his unyielding ideas of right and wrong and end his life by jumping into the depths of the river?

Was it because Valjean had spared him?

"Did he say if anything was distressing him?" he asks.

"Only that he experienced some distressing events at the barricade," she says. "That was all, really."

"Well, in any case, I'm glad you caught him in time," he responds. "You saved a life, Cosette. I'm proud of you."

She smiles, and Valjean's shaking heart calms at the sight.

"Is Enjolras alright?" she asks, obviously worried for her beloved Marius' friend.

"He's sleeping now, probably from a mixture of laudanum and pain," he answers, frowning. "His shoulder wound will heal, though his arm will be out of commission for a while. It's his leg Doctor Figeuron is concerned about. He removed the bullet, but there was some serious muscle damage, and he's a bit feverish, which means he's acquired an infection."

"But he'll live?" she asks, knowing it will destroy Marius if Enjolras dies...there are far too many dead already.

"Doctor Figueron believes so, yes, as long as the infection doesn't get out of control," Valjean says, vowing to check in on the boy before retiring himself. "But he'll have a difficult recovery. Our world's changed tonight, Cosette. I'm not quite sure what tomorrow will bring. But rest, we'll need to be up early to go and see your Marius."

She nods, kissing his cheek once more before sliding under her covers.

Valjean shuts the door behind him, marveling at how one's life can change so rapidly in a matter of hours, mind mired down by thoughts of Marius and Cosette, of the boys sleeping in the rooms all around him, and of Javert, who he's almost certain will not come arresting him now.

But that's the trouble with the life he leads.

Nothing is ever certain.

The past he's so long hidden from Cosette, that he's spent so much time trying to escape…

He fears there will soon be no other option than telling her the truth.

And as he looks up at the bishop's silver candlesticks before he falls asleep, he prays to God that the morning will bring the answers he needs.


	4. Fever Dreams

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Wow, thank you again to the wonderful response to this story! Thanks to all the reviewers, the readers, the followers, you're all wonderful! I'm going to say that this chapter was particularly hard to write, and I'm really, really hoping it's in character. There's less Valjean in this particular chapter, but the following one will have a ton of him! I do hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4: Fever Dreams

Enjolras knows he's dreaming.

Yet he still can't wake up.

Impenetrable darkness surrounds him, but the sounds of gunshots echo in his ears.

Where is he?

Is he at back at the barricade?

A scream pierces the velvet black, and Enjolras feels something warm splatter on his face, running down his skin.

It smells of blood.

It _is_ blood.

He hears a familiar voice and he whips around, watching a transparent version of Prouvaire materialize before him, the bullet hole over his heart easily visible, the blood flaming red against the white specter.

"Jehan?" he asks. "Where am I?"

"In the darkest recesses of your own mind," Jehan answers, his voice severe, the absolute opposite of the poetry-loving, flower-picking friend Enjolras knows. "You killed me, Enjolras. You didn't try to save me, you just left me to _die_."

"I…" Enjolras stutters. "I tried, but you were already dead. I wanted to save you!"

"You killed us with your dream," Joly's voice adds, appearing beside Jehan. His head bleeds from being knocked back by flying pieces of the barricade when the canon ball burst through. "With your dream of a free France that won't ever exist."

"We followed you." It's Bousset now. "And you led us to the slaughter."

"You promised us the people would come," Bahorel says. "You swore they would come to arms and join us."

"I…" Enjolras says again. "I'm sorry, I'm _so _sorry."

He sees Eponine Thenardier appear in the corner of the darkness, but she remains silent, blood gushing from the wound in her side, tears streaming down her face.

"Sorry isn't good enough, Enjolras!" Jehan insists. "What chance do I have for love now, when I'm dead?"

Quite suddenly they're all surrounding him, their white shapes the only light in the constant black. Their hands are on his throat, choking him. The ghosts of all their compatriots appear, closing in on him and growing in number.

He can't breathe, his whole body shaking from emotion and exhaustion.

_You're dreaming_, he tells himself. _You're dreaming and these aren't actually your friends. They wouldn't speak to you this way. They were fighting for France, too, they loved their county. They loved you._

He twists in their grip but as hard as he tries he can't get a breath, gunshots still going off around him, more blood spattering his skin.

More screams.

"You failed, Enjolras," Joly says, eyes black with hatred. "You killed us and for _what_?"

Enjolras can't reply, and black plays at the edges of his eyes until he can't see anything at all.

_Wake up_, he wills himself. _Wake up._

He pushes against their grip, finding he's spiraling downward and out the dream, and the next thing he knows he's sitting straight up in bed, a scream ripping from his throat.

* * *

Grantaire awakes to the sound of a scream.

Specifically Enjolras' scream.

He's fallen asleep in the armchair next to Enjolras' bed in spite of Combeferre's pleas for him to get some rest in a legitimate bed; Combeferre and Feuilly are in one room while Grantaire is meant to share with Courfeyrac, who has long been asleep and so doesn't notice his absence. Otherwise, Grantaire knows, he would have told Combeferre, who would have dragged him back to his own bed for fear of him waking up with a very sore neck the following morning.

He bolts in his seat from surprise, eyes flying open, seeing Enjolras sitting straight up in bed with the sheets twisted in knots all around him, his breath coming in ragged, gulping gasps and sweat pouring down his face, blonde hair sticking to his skin. His eyes are wild, bloodshot, and filled with tears, and Grantaire feels fear flood his veins, goose-bumps pricking his skin.

This is not the Enjolras he knows.

The Enjolras he knows is a passionate idealist, a fighter, fire sparking in his eyes whenever he speaks of revolution, of helping the poor and the suffering, of a free and Democratic France.

The Enjolras he knows is serious, calm, intelligent, and determined. He's harsh, sometimes, tries to keep his emotions in check, but it's obvious to those who know him that he has so much feeling in him that he might explode. Because how else would the only son of wealthy parents start noticing the suffering of people who weren't even in his sphere of existence? Enjolras shunned everything he ever knew to fight for a people who needed defending. It's not just logic and hard work that starts a revolution, Grantaire's learned, but also a great deal of compassion.

The Enjolras he knows is always stepping up to lead, to inspire, to be a rock for his friends who are like a family. Even when he's sitting in a corner of the Musain reading or working on a paper, ever devoted to the cause even if the others take a break, he still looks up every so often and quietly smiles at his friend's antics.

Sometimes he joins in, his laughter mingling beautifully with theirs.

But this…

He doesn't know what to do with this.

Enjolras is complicated on a normal day.

"Enjolras?" Grantaire half-whispers, not wanting to startle him.

Enjolras jumps anyway, whipping his head around; it's clear he didn't notice Grantaire's presence upon awakening. His blue eyes widen, and Grantaire notices his whole body is trembling.

"Grantaire?" he questions, sounding almost like a child. "Were you sleeping in that chair?"

"Yes," Grantaire says slowly, his fear growing exponentially. "What's wrong? You woke up screaming."

"Dream," Enjolras responds, pulling the covers around himself with his good arm. "I saw Prouvaire, Joly, Bousset, Bahorel…so many students. I saw Eponine Thenardier, too. So many dead, and they blamed me for still being alive. Blamed me for their deaths. "

"They would never blame you," Grantaire says firmly. "You know that."

Enjolras looks away, not responding, but his eyes are shining with fever, with pain, and with guilt.

"We lost," he says, trembling even harder. "All the years of work and we lost, and the people, they didn't come. Why didn't they come, Grantaire?" he asks, grasping the front of Grantaire's shirt. "Why didn't they _come_?"

"I don't know Enjolras, I don't know," Grantaire responds, extremely worried now. Enjolras still grasps his shirt, so Grantaire places a hand over his, desperately trying to calm him down.

To his surprise, Enjolras doesn't pull away, but stares at him with still wide eyes, eyes that are clouded with fear.

It's the first time Grantaire remembers seeing Enjolras visibly afraid.

"I thought they would come," Enjolras mumbles, sweat beading at his forehead. "I was _certain_ they would come. I was ready to give my life for them, if necessary, ready to sacrifice everything…but they abandoned us."

"They're just cowards, Enjolras," Grantaire says firmly. "It's not your fault they didn't come."

In this moment, Grantaire sees something in Enjolras break. It's something he can't quite put his finger on, but he can almost hear it shatter, the sound ringing in his ears.

"What if it doesn't even make a difference?" Enjolras questions, breathing in deep between his words. "What if they forget the sacrifices our friends made? What if…"

Suddenly a strangled sob breaks forth, a sob that even in his drugged, feverish state, Enjolras tries to hold back, a sound that utterly terrifies Grantaire.

He's crying.

Apollo is crying, and Grantaire feels his heart crack, knowing that the fever, the laudanum, and the pain have ripped away Enjolras' defenses surrounding the trauma they've all experienced.

"I killed them, Grantaire!" Enjolras shouts, ripping his hand away. "I might as well have killed them with my own carbine! I killed them and I failed the people!"

"The people failed you!" Grantaire cries, lowering his voice almost immediately, knowing his shouting will only make things worse.

Quite suddenly Enjolras is grasping at his covers, and Grantaire notices blood seeping through the sweat-soaked sheets from the bandage around Enjolras' leg.

"I'm so cold, so cold," he says, shivering again, his skin flushing red.

"Should I go get Combeferre?" Grantaire questions.

"No!" Enjolras exclaims, and he's looking around the room as though he sees people or things that aren't really there, and Grantaire is certain it's the ghosts of their dead friends. "Don't go, don't leave me alone with them. Combeferre needn't be bothered…he needs to rest, he needs..."

"Alright, Enjolras, I'll stay," Grantaire says, cutting off Enjolras' ramble. "But I need you to lie down, okay? You're going to hurt yourself." Grantaire isn't used to being a caretaker, doesn't think he possesses any kind of talent for it, but this is Enjolras, and therefore he has no choice but to do his best.

And then out of nowhere, Enjolras starts clambering out of bed, bad leg, bad shoulder, and all.

"I have to go," he says. "I have to go turn myself in, it's only fair to everyone."

"Enjolras _no_," Grantaire says, pushing him gently back down, Enjolras meeting him with a shaky-yet-intense resistance.

But someone with a raging fever can't be reasoned with.

"I'm going!" he shouts, pupils dilated so heavily Grantaire can hardly see the irises. "You can't… you can't stop me!"

Enjolras moves to stand before Grantaire can stop him, only making it for a few seconds before collapsing onto the floor and sending Grantaire crashing down with him.

He cries out in agony but he's still fighting, and Grantaire wraps his arms around Enjolras' middle, preventing him from taking off down the hallway.

"Let me go!" he exclaims, blood still soaking through his bandages.

"Combeferre!" Grantaire shouts, not caring that he's waking the whole house. "Monsieur Fauchelevent!"

It's only a few moments before Grantaire hears footsteps thundering down the hall; Monsieur Fauchelevent arrives so fast that Grantaire suspects he wasn't sleeping, followed quickly by Combeferre, his glasses that miraculously survived the barricade jammed crookedly on his nose. He's trailed by a bewildered looking Courfeyrac and a drowsy Feuilly. Gavroche follows, dragging a hesitant Cosette by the hand.

Enjolras' arms are still swinging, and from his odd position on the floor, Grantaire can't pick him up; it's all he can do to keep from getting struck in the face himself.

"He's raging with fever," Grantaire explains. "Started saying he was going to turn himself in, got up, and fell. He's bleeding through his bandages, too. And I think he's hallucinating."

Enjolras tires quickly now, slumping in Grantaire's grip as Monsieur Fauchelevent and Courfeyrac pick him up, placing him carefully back on the bed.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says in that calming tone Grantaire has never heard anyone else replicate, placing a hand on the side of Enjolras' face. "Enjolras, it's alright."

"It's not," Enjolras argues, exhaustion taking over despite his struggle to keep fighting. "It's not alright, they're _dead_. _I_ should be dead. I've failed everyone, failed France…"

At hearing his friend's words Combeferre looks like he's about to cry himself, but he clears his throat, remaining strong for their fever-ridden leader.

"I need to get this medicine in you so you can calm down and I can work on lowering your fever," Combeferre persists, tilting a teaspoon of the laudanum Doctor Figeuron left behind toward Enjolras' mouth.

The teaspoon goes flying, smashing against the wall and drizzling Combeferre in laudanum.

But Combeferre isn't swayed, isn't even frazzled.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent, can you hold his arms down carefully for me, please?" Combeferre asks. "Grantaire, Courfeyrac, take his legs."

They all obey, but Enjolras continues flailing even as Combeferre succeeds in tipping the medication into his mouth.

"I'm sorry," Grantaire hears Combeferre whisper as he pulls the bottle away. "I'm so sorry, but we've got to calm you down."

Enjolras looks back at him with half-hearted fury, eyelids already drooping from the mixture of his efforts and the incredibly potent drugs.

He turns to Monsieur Fauchelevent (or Valjean or whatever his name really is, Grantaire still means to find out the truth) a question in his eyes.

"Monsieur, do you have some cold rags I could use?" he asks. "I desperately need to get this fever down."

"Of course," Fauchelevent answers, but before he can move Cosette is already off to retrieve them, biting her lip in concern. Grantaire's only spoken a few words in her presence, but he finds he already likes her; she's welcomed them with open arms just for being Marius' friends, has constantly asked all evening if there's anything she can do to help.

"Feuilly, please get the extra bandages Doctor Figueron left from our room," Combeferre continues, and Feuilly goes without question, eyes mired down with melancholy.

Grantaire watches him go, turning back around at the sound of Enjolras' voice, so soft it almost isn't heard.

"I'm sorry," he utters, nearly asleep now. "I'm so sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Combeferre says softly, placing a hand on Enjolras' forehead, grimacing slightly at how warm it feels.

"Go to sleep," Grantaire adds, surprised at the authority in his own voice. "We'll be here when you wake up."

Enjolras nods, head falling against the pillow.

Finally, he's asleep.

"Grantaire what happened?" Courfeyrac asks immediately, all traces of his usual permanent grin gone as Feuilly returns with the bandages, followed quickly by Cosette with the cold cloths.

"I fell asleep in the chair," Grantaire tells them, feeling all of their eyes on him. "And I woke up to him screaming and sweating and gasping for breath. He'd had a nightmare, and it just went downhill from there. His fever got worse and he just kept going on incoherently about how everything was his fault, and how he'd failed our friends and the people…" he trails off, hardly able to put the experience into words.

Cosette gingerly places a damp cloth on Enjolras' forehead and silence falls, broken only by Gavroche's voice, sounding small in the quiet.

"Is Enjolras going to be okay?" he asks.

"He'll be alright Gavroche," Combeferre answers, already re-bandaging Enjolras' leg wound, which looks worse than Grantaire even imagined. "It's just going to take a while. But I promise you he'll be alright."

Grantaire meets Monsieur Fauchelevent's eyes for a moment, knowing that while Enjolras' physical journey will certainly take time, the emotional journey might take even longer.

Because all their lives have changed.

Changed irrevocably.


	5. A Morning of Change

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello readers! Wow, thanks so much again for the wonderful response and loyalty this story is receiving, you guys are amazing! Just a couple of notes on this chapter: I was reading through the screenplay they released for the film the other day, and noticed there was a bit during the truncated "Turning" scene that was supposed to show Enjolras' mother and Grantaire's sister there looking for the bodies, which gave me what I hope is a good idea for this story. Also, to go along with that, I know that all the barricade boys (aside from Marius and Jean Prouvaire) aren't assigned first names in book, musical, or movie, so I've had to assign some, as neither Enjolras' mother or Grantaire's sister would refer to them by last name. (I'll admit though, it's strange, so I'll always refer to them by last name unless a family member is speaking to them.) But just so you aren't confused, I've given Enjolras the first name Rene, and Grantaire the first name Lucien, and the other boys will get them in future chapters.

Goodness, I hope that wasn't too confusing. I do hope you enjoy this chapter…it's sort of one of those that leads to meatier things in the next chapter, if that makes sense. Thank you again for all the support!

Chapter 5: A Morning of Change

Valjean awakes before the light breaches the sky. He rises from bed, a note slid under his door, no doubt put there by Touissant. It's from Marius' aunt, who tells him that Marius has been asking after Cosette and his friends, and would very much appreciate if he would call at his earliest convenience. Considering last night's alarming wake-up call, he pulls on his dressing gown and decides to check on Enjolras and the others.

The house is silent, his steps creaking against the wooden floorboards. The boys and Cosette are still asleep, so he walks quietly down the hallway, the warmth of the early summer morning seeping in through the windows. The door to the guest room where Enjolras is staying stands ajar and Valjean pushes it open silently, a touching sight meeting his eyes.

Four chairs surround the bed; Combeferre and Grantaire on one side and Feuilly on the other. The fourth chair where Valjean assumes Courfeyrac slept is empty, and he wonders where the boy's gone. Gavroche meanwhile, is curled up at the edge of the large bed, that red jacket still in hand. Enjolras sleeps too, but his slumber doesn't look especially peaceful; Combeferre succeeded in getting his fever down slightly, but patches of red run across his skin, pooling in his cheeks.

These boys are a family, Valjean realizes, and they love each other. His heart aches for how young they are, how lost now, how grief-stricken. He went to the barricade to save Marius' life, but found he simply couldn't leave the rest of them to their fate, not when there was such a clear opportunity to save them. He feels an unbidden rush of affection for all of these young men, and he can't yet put his finger on why.

He senses someone behind him and turns around, coming face to face with Courfeyrac.

"Good morning monsieur," he says, a tired, tight smile on his face that doesn't reach his green eyes, eyes that Valjean senses were once rather merry.

"Good morning. I thought myself the only one awake," Valjean answers.

"I woke up a little while ago," Courfeyrac admits. "And started talking with your housekeeper when I went downstairs for a drink of water."

"Toussaint always manages to beat me," Valjean says with a chuckle. "I see you all spent your last few hours of sleep in these chairs?"

"None of us could bear to leave Enjolras alone," Courfeyrac replies, surveying his friends with a bittersweet gleam in his eyes. "He's the chief of our revolution, yes, but he's also our friend, our brother. He's the best of us, really. And seeing him like that…" he trails off, the memory of Enjolras writhing in pain and overcome with fever, saying that he deserved death imprinted on both their minds.

"Our friend Joly," Courfeyrac continues. "He's a medical student too…" he stops again, the fond smile at the thought of his friend sliding from his face, eyes widening in horror at his mistake. "…was…_was_ a medical student too. He would want to make sure that someone was watching Enjolras at all times, with the injuries he has. Joly was a bit of a hypochondriac." He finishes his sentence quickly, tears glistening in his eyes that he doesn't quite let fall.

Valjean squeezes his shoulder silently, because there are no appropriate words for what these boys are experiencing.

"None of us know how to thank you enough monsieur," Courfeyrac says, recovering his voice and clearing his throat. "We'd be dead if it weren't for you. All of us."

Courfeyrac's unasked question hangs in the air between them; he's no doubt wondering when Valjean's generosity will give out, wonders what on earth they'll do now. Their expectation, Valjean suspected, was to either emerge with complete victory or utter loss, not this strange in-between where only some of them survived and were inevitable enemies of the still-standing state.

"I was once in what appeared a hopeless situation," Valjean says, meeting Courfeyrac's eyes. "And then someone appeared and changed my life irrevocably. I will not abandon you boys; we will figure something out, I promise. In fact, we can discuss it when Cosette and I return from visiting Monsieur Pontmercy."

Courfeyrac's eyes light up ever so slightly at Valjean's words.

"Marius is alright then?" he asks, hopeful.

"He lost a good amount of blood, but the bullet did go right through," Valjean says. "He'll be in pain for a while, but there's no sign of infection just yet. His aunt said his wrist was pretty badly sprained from his fall, too. But yes, he will be alright. It's just a matter of recovery."

"I wish I could go with you," Courfeyrac replies. "But I know that isn't plausible at the moment."

"I think the outside world is a bit too dangerous just now," Valjean says. "It's not Marius' family I don't trust; I just fear that someone in the street will recognize any of your faces."

Courfeyrac nods, falling silent again.

"But as soon as Marius is able, I'll bring him here," Valjean reassures him. "I know he wants to see all of you."

"He'd better," Courfeyrac jokes softly. "Marius is a good man, Monsieur. If I may say so, he would be an excellent match for your daughter. You should have seen him going on about her a few days ago, right in the middle of getting ready for the barricade." Sadness still rests in Courfeyrac's eyes, but there is the trace of a cheeky grin on his face.

Valjean's stomach still twists a bit at the thought of a married Cosette, at the thought of losing her.

_But maybe, _a voice whispers. _Maybe a marriage doesn't mean you've lost her. You can still be a part of her life._

"I have no doubt of it," Valjean answers, pushing away his inner voice. "I'll tell Toussiant not to answer the door until Cosette and I have returned, just as a precaution."

Courfeyrac bids him farewell and thanks him once more before returning to his post. And as Valjean advances toward Cosette's room to awaken her, he knows that soon he will have no choice but to divulge his past to her. He's always known this day would come, and yet he still fears the results, fears losing her.

_She's your daughter, _his inner voice says again. _And she loves you, and she's older now. You need to trust her._

But despite all his advances since his transformation after meeting Bishop Myriel, trust doesn't come easily.

Must Marius also know the truth?

And these boys he's taken under his wing?

A part of him that he doesn't acknowledge says yes.

But a part of him knew that the moment he made the decision to rescue them. He's needed, he realizes. Needed as much as he was when Fantine died and he took Cosette as his own.

He opens the door to his daughter's bedroom, content to watch her sleep for a moment, and something strikes him. Yes, this young man who appeared will certainly change things but…

He wants to see her with Marius.

He wants to see her face when it's lit up in love with another person, because love is a blessing from God, a beautiful blessing that Cosette certainly deserves. She could live a life with Marius, could be safe with him when the time comes for Valjean to pass on from this world.

In this moment, he realizes, he's finally accepting the fact that his daughter is growing up. She's a wonderful, sweet soul, and all his fears that something would happen to her, that his past would interfere and rip her away from him, from happiness, fall away for a moment.

It's the definition of bittersweet.

* * *

Madame Flora Enjolras felt sick.

She felt sicker with every step toward the street where the barricade, her son's barricade, fell. Her husband was not on speaking terms with their son, but she refused to follow in his footsteps. She's in Paris on her own besides, as business and his anger at his son kept Aubry away from the city. It wasn't even that Aubry was a monarchist, it was his insistence that their son had gone too far in his political extremism. The memory of Rene storming out the door with eyes ablaze, Aubry's words still echoing through the large dining room, never leaves her mind for long.

"_If you want to throw your life away for some hopeless cause that is bound to fail, then you will not speak to me further! You shame your family!"_

Rene was nineteen then, and home for Christmas from university. Aubry had not gone so far as to disinherit their son (he was the only child, after all) but they had not spoken a word to each other in three years.

But she could never give up her relationship with her son; he was born with a fire in his eyes, and she knew there was no stopping him.

She was proud of him, proud of his compassion and unquenchable desire to help the poor and suffering of France, to help secure freedom for all.

But this…this isn't what she'd expected. No matter how just the cause, no mother wants her son to die before her, no mother wants to retrieve his body from a massacred barricade.

She knows the exact moment when she reaches the barricade, because the stench of blood drenches the air and a mix of national-guard soldiers and policemen mill about. She closes her eyes, pushing down her overwhelming urge to burst into tears, and walks forward.

But she knows he's dead.

Other women are there too; some are scrubbing the blood away from the bricks and the sight turns her stomach. Others kneel down next to the bodies, and unrestrained sobs pierce the otherwise eerie silence. She doesn't ask the police any questions and they don't bother her, but the anger toward them bubbles up in her throat, hot and unforgiving. It doesn't matter to her that they were doing their duty…it only matters that all these boys are dead, and her son along with them; her bright-eyed, blonde-haired, beautiful boy.

Only she doesn't see him in the line of bodies.

She meets the gaze of a younger woman with long brown hair, likely around thirty or so, who looks as lost as she does.

Flora's eyes dart frantically up and down searching for her son, her heart beating impossibly fast in her chest. Have they degraded his body in some way? Is he in prison? She stops short when she hears one of the officers start a conversation with the imposing police inspector; she leans in closer but keeps her eyes trained on the ground so they won't suspect she's listening.

"Inspector Javert," the younger officer says, and the older man looks up at him, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes, but allows his underling to continue. "We believe there are some insurgents missing, sir. We certainly don't know all of them by name, but by our initial count when this began they aren't all here."

"Do you know of any specifically?" Javert asks, at rapt attention now.

"Yes sir," the officer responds, looking nervous. "The leader, Enjolras…"

"Yes, I know him," Javert says, cutting him off, rubbing the top of his head almost unconsciously as if it pains him. "His name and his face. He's always seeing fit to give speeches and getting his lieutenants to hand out pamphlets and generally causing all kinds of congestion around the city. I can't help but know him. He's not here?"

"No sir," the officer says. "We've looked everywhere."

"Then he's escaped," Javert says, and Flora notices a strange, almost misplaced panic in his eyes. "Likely along with a few others."

"And are they not to be treated as enemies of the state, sir? As traitors?"

"Yes, you fool. But we don't know all of their names, and our superiors along with the government will be most interested in the leader, so he should be your focus," Javert snaps, turning quite suddenly away from his fellow officer and stalking off inside the Café Musain.

Flora releases a breath she didn't know she held, leaving the barricade as quickly and quietly as possible.

There's a chance he's alive.

There's a chance her son is _alive_.

She doesn't care that he's a wanted man and all that entails, she only cares that he's _breathing_. And her husband's frustration be damned, she will protect her son with everything in her power; but she knows even someone as stubborn as Aubry wouldn't want his own son dead, no matter how strong his fury.

She walks a distance away from the barricade because the sight of all the dead boys, her son's friends, burns her eyes with horror. She turns however, at the sound of a frightened voice behind her.

"Excuse me, Madame?" the girl she noticed earlier asks. "I…I couldn't help but notice that you were looking for someone at the barricade, and that you might have overheard the officers' conversation."

Flora catches the younger woman's eyes, something in them telling her that she isn't a spy; that she's only searching for a loved one as well.

"My son wasn't there," she says carefully. "I don't…I don't know what's happened to him."

"Is your son…" she begins, the gently takes Flora's arm and pulls her a bit further away, her voice a whisper. "Is Enjolras your son?"

"I…how do you know his name?" Flora asks, bewildered.

"My brother Lucien, better known as Grantaire to the boys, was at the barricade," she explains. "He spent nearly all his time with the other boys at this café. He brought me here one night, shortly after I moved to Paris with my husband, and I met his friends. Grantaire had a bit too much wine, and Enjolras and Combeferre even helped me get him back to his rooms near here. And I can tell you exactly who is missing from that line of bodies."

Flora breaths in deep, comforted by the prospect of an ally in this situation.

"Yes," she tells her, voice so soft that she leans in close, afraid that it will carry with the wind. "Yes. He's my son. Do you know how many are missing?"

"Six," she answers. "Enjolras, Combeferre, Marius, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and my brother. But they must…they must be together. I'm sure of it."

Flora takes the woman's hand, determined.

"Let's find a café away from here, somewhere quiet, where we can talk," she says. "I'm Flora."

"Adrienne," she replies.

"I don't know how," Flora says. "But we must find where they've gone."

Adrienne nods, following her new companion down the cobblestone streets.

* * *

Marius isn't expecting the beautiful sight before his eyes when he awakens for only the second time since Monsieur Fauchelevent brought him home. In the middle of the night when he'd awoken, utterly terrified and asking after his friends and Cosette, his grandfather's face greeted him, but now…

Now it was Cosette herself, and despite the pain, despite the drowsiness, his heart swells with delight.

"Cosette?" he questions, just to make sure he's not hallucinating.

"Yes, Marius," she says, taking his hand as carefully as a piece of china. "It's me. Papa brought me as soon as he received your aunt's letter this morning." She turns and smiles at her father, who makes himself small in the corner of the room, watching them with a benevolent expression.

"Cosette," he whispers. "I feared I'd never see you again." He meets her eyes, stomach sinking when he thinks of his friends. "Enjolras!" he exclaims, a hazy memory of seeing Enjolras bleeding on the couch opposite him when he'd woken up the first time invading his brain. He sits up, hit by a surge of sharp pain in his abdomen.

"Careful," Cosette chides, helping him lay back down. "You'll start bleeding again if you do that. Enjolras is at our home recovering."

"Is he alright?" Marius asks, anxiety seeping into his veins. "What about the others? I remember seeing Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Feuilly, Grantaire, and Gavroche."

"They're all with us," Cosette answers. "Enjolras was shot twice; once in the shoulder and once in the leg, and the bullet lodged in his leg which caused a bit of an infection, but he will be alright, we're making sure of it. The others are scratched up but safe, I promise you."

Marius breathes out, relief flooding him. His friends…_some_ of his friends, he corrects himself, are alive.

"And the rest…the rest are dead?" he asks, tears gathering in his eyes.

"I'm afraid so," Monsieur Fauchelevent says, sadness in his tone as he finally speaks up. "I'm so sorry, Marius."

"You have nothing to apologize for monsieur," Marius insists. "You saved my life, saved my friends' lives, at the risk of your own. And you have brought Cosette to see me. You have gone far beyond the call of duty."

He pauses, tired already from just this small bit of effort. He's in his old bedroom, he realizes, and it feels strikingly strange; he's been estranged from his grandfather for so long now, has been away from this house so long that it hardly feels like home and yet it does all at once. He vaguely remembers his grandfather's wrinkled hand stroking his forehead in the night, a far cry from the man who'd been so embarrassed by his political actions just days ago in the square. A part of him still resents his grandfather, but the larger part is overwhelmed with love; despite the injustices he did Marius' father (and Marius himself, for keeping his father away,) he's still the only living parent Marius has ever known.

For the first time since beginning his political activism, since finding out the truth about his father, Marius feels safe in this house, his anger receding at the thought that his grandfather tossed all his grudges aside, welcoming him with open arms when he needed it most.

"Papa has promised to house and keep your friends safe," Cosette tells him, shyly taking his hand and squeezing it. "We'll take good care of them for you." Her voice is wistful, and Marius feels a rush of love for her all over again at seeing how much she cares about the fates of his friends, his brothers.

"As soon as you're able you are free to come visit them," Fauchelevent adds. "I feel that's safer than bringing them here, at present."

Marius nods, a swoop of unbidden fear running through his stomach.

"You think they're after us, then?" Marius asks.

Cosette looks a smidge unsettled at his words, but she does a good job masking it for his sake.

"I'm not sure," Fauchelevent says, worry shading his eyes. "But I don't want to take any chances now. I don't know if they'll notice some of you are missing, but I'm almost certain they'll notice Enjolras isn't there; he was the leader, and they'll know his name and his face, which might lead them to realize that the rest of you are gone as well. It's best to lay low for the moment."

A knock at the door interrupts their next words, and his grandfather enters with a smile on his face.

"Oh you're awake, Marius," he says gleefully, coming over to the side of the bed and standing next to Cosette. "I was hoping you would be, so you could talk to Monsieur and Madmoiselle Fauchelevent. They're such kind people, you know, I discovered that while speaking with them when they arrived, and you couldn't have picked a lovelier lady," he continues, patting Cosette on the shoulder. "The doctor just arrived to check in with you, so I'm going to have the pleasure of having a glass of wine with the Fauchelevents while he sees to you, does that sound alright?"

"Yes grandfather," Marius replies, returning the elderly man's smile.

Cosette presses a kiss to his forehead, promising to return as soon as the doctor leaves, and Marius watches his grandfather thank Fauchelevent once again for saving Marius' life. He falls against the pillows and waits for the doctor, a sharp, unyielding sadness pricking his heart when he thinks of his friends who didn't survive; Joly, Jean Prouvaire, Bousset, Bahorel…so many students who loyally attended their meetings and fought by their side. And Eponine, who died in his arms, who had been the most loyal of friends to him, who was so brave despite her circumstance. Yet some of his friends are alive, and Cosette is still miraculously in his life. But they lost the fight, are in a potentially very dangerous situation.

The thought of Cosette's comforting smile warms him, but he doesn't think he's ever felt this lost and found all at once.


	6. Chapter 6

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Here's the next chapter, I do hope you enjoy! Thanks so much again for the wonderful response this story is getting, you guys are seriously amazing.

Chapter 6

Enjolras wakes to a gentle hand laying a cool, damp cloth on his forehead; the hand is too soft for a man's, too small, and when he opens his eyes he sees Cosette hovering above him, a worried frown pulling at her lips.

"Madmoiselle?" he asks groggily, bewildered at her presence.

"You're finally awake," she says, brushing his hair back from the cloth in a gesture that reminds him strikingly of his mother. She must think he's dead, he realizes, and wishes he could find a way to let her know he still lives.

"I'm sorry you seemed to have earned the post of sitting by my bedside," he says, sitting up ever so slightly against the pillows when she removes her hand. "But you don't have to, I'm alright."

"You're not alright," she replies, an almost indulgent smile on her face. "And I volunteered. You've been asleep for more than half the day, and your friends refused to leave their posts, so my father forced them downstairs to eat something and I volunteered to sit with you."

He opens his mouth to protest, surprised when she cuts him off.

"No arguing," she says firmly. "The doctor came by a while ago and said it was essential to keep cold cloths on your head every hour to get your fever down. It wouldn't do to have you succumb to an infection after you've gotten this far, would it?"

Enjolras falls silent, taken aback. This girl, he thinks, is unlike any of the young ladies he's seen Courfeyrac flirting with in the wine shops.

"I don't suppose we've been properly introduced," he answers after a moment. "Although I don't imagine you pictured meeting Marius' friends like this, either."

"Staying in my house and riddled with bullet holes, in your case?" she asks. "No, not really. I imagined a nice glass of wine or something of that nature."

It's a joke, he realizes, an offering of friendship, and he laughs lightly.

"It's nice to meet you then, Cosette," he replies. "Circumstance and all."

"You too, Enjolras," she says, unhindered warmth and amusement in her tone.

He smiles weakly at her, feeling a surge of white-hot pain shoot through his shoulder and down his leg, setting his body on fire. He closes his eyes against the growing agony, visibly shuddering. It feels as if knives dig into the tender flesh of his wounds, sharp and unending.

"Oh," Cosette breathes, jumping up and retrieving the bottle of Laudanum from the table. "Here, Combeferre told me to give you some of this if the pain was bad."

"I'm…"

"Not fine?" she questions, raising her eyebrows and pouring some of the foul-tasting liquid into the teaspoon. "No, you're not. Open up."

She half-glares at him and he gives in, allowing her to tip the medicine into his mouth, blanching at the taste.

"You are a stubborn one," she says, still kind. "You're going to have to learn to put up with some mothering for a while, you know. Your friends are worried sick over you. Gavroche even slept with your ruined jacket."

Enjolras nods, allowing her to adjust the pillow as he lays back, willing the Laudanum to work and cease the throbbing in his shoulder and leg. He thinks of tough, street-smart Gavroche clutching his jacket while he slept, his heart flooding with affection for the little boy the friends of the ABC had essentially taken in as their own.

"I'm infamously not talented in that area," he says. "I was injured in a riot once when I was giving a speech; the police came and it turned bad in moments. I cracked a few ribs, and I think Combeferre and Joly were ready to kill me by the time I was healed."

A wave of sadness crashes over him when he hears himself say Joly's name, and seeing the accompanying face in his mind only makes it worse.

"Have you been to see Marius?" he asks, changing the subject for the sake of his own emotions. He remembers his nightmare, remembers Joly's eyes black with hatred, Prouvaire's harsh voice. He has a faint memory of awakening, of Grantaire grasping his hand and trying to calm him. "Is he alright?"

"Papa and I were there this morning," Cosette answers, pulling the blankets up around him the moment she notices he's shivering. "He's weak from blood loss and he's in pain, but the doctor says he'll be fine, he just needs some recovery time. He was lucky he didn't get an infection as well."

"Better me than him," Enjolras says, feeling the Laudanum taking effect, the sharp edges of his pain dulling a bit.

"You really shouldn't say things like that," Cosette tells him, serious. "You didn't deserve this infection. Marius would be angry if he heard you. I could scarcely get him settled when we left, he was so concerned about the lot of you, so eager to be here."

Enjolras meets her eyes for a moment, understanding what his friend saw in her that day on the street; even in their brief conversation, he knows she's one of the most pure-hearted people he's ever come across. Enjolras has never had the time or the mind-set for romantic love affairs; he was far too interested in his education, in his homeland, in revolution. His friends were all he'd needed.

But despite his annoyance at Marius' distraction a few days ago, he thinks Cosette might be just right for his friend.

"He would tell me I was being overly self-sacrificing again," Enjolras says. "He often feels the need to tell me that when I stay at the Musain far past everyone else." He pauses, a question on his tongue. "Did I…I seem to remember making a rather bad escape attempt last night. I remember falling on the floor beside the bed and knocking Grantaire over…"

"You woke up in the middle of the night with a raging fever," she tells him, and as she speaks the fuzzy memory becomes clearer. "Grantaire was sleeping in the chair and said you woke up from a nightmare and were disoriented, which ended in you thinking you needed to turn yourself in to protect the others. I don't think Grantaire's slept anywhere but in this chair since you've been here, and as soon as you woke up in that state your other friends haven't either."

Enjolras warms, the shivers subsiding ever so slightly when he thinks of his friends. They are unceasingly loyal, and he never thought he'd meet a group of such like-minded young men; their different qualities fused together made an extraordinary, cohesive unit.

He couldn't have asked for better friends, of that he's certain.

He thinks of Grantaire, who hasn't left his side since they escaped the barricade, a memory flashing in his mind with vivid color.

"_You do not believe in everything." _

_He glares with disdain at Grantaire's bottle, the bottle he's tried so hard to pry from his friend's fingers on more occasions than he cares to count._

"_I believe in you," Grantaire says resolutely, locking eyes with him and refusing to look away._

_And when Enjolras meets his gaze, he's shocked to see there is indeed a spark of belief there, bright as the flame in the nearby fireplace._

_He tells Grantaire to sleep off his absinthe, and yet Grantaire presses him further, listing off reasons why he was just as capable of an errand as any of their other friends._

"_Be serious," Enjolras says, testing his resolve. _

"_I am wild," Grantaire responds, that same spark in his eyes._

_And so Enjolras sends him to the Barriere du Maine, and when he arrives to check on the progress, finds him playing dominos. _

And yet he still never gave up on Grantaire, never forgot that spark he saw in his eyes that day, the spark that remained through his profuse apologies when he noticed Enjolras' presence; he was cynic, a self-proclaimed skeptic, but Grantaire's loyalty to his person speaks volumes, Enjolras thinks. He just can't figure out why Grantaire thinks so highly of him, why the pessimist would cling to the optimist. But then, Grantaire has always been the most bewildering of all his friends.

"I am blessed to have such friends," Enjolras says. "I am lucky that some of them, at least, survived," he continues, wistful, grief piercing him like the bullets from yesterday. "And you are kind to sit with me, stubbornness and all."

Cosette smiles again, taking the cloth on his head and replacing it with another. "It's the least I can do for Marius' friends," she says.

"I've known Marius for a long time now, and unlike some of our friends," Enjolras tells her grinning a bit as he thinks of Courfeyrac, sadness swooping through his stomach when he thinks of Jehan and his love poems. "He was not in love a day in his life until he met you. So it must be something quite special."

Despite himself, Enjolras feels a bittersweet smile tweak his lips at the memory of Grantaire and Joly teasing Marius in the café just days ago.

_Marius, what's wrong today? You look as if you've seen a ghost._

_A ghost you say? A ghost maybe. She was just like a ghost to me. One minute there and she was gone!_

_Some wine and say what's going on! I am agog, I am aghast! Is Marius in love at last? I've never heard him ooo and ahhh. You talk of battles to be won, and here he comes like Don Juan! It is better than an opera!_

He'd been frustrated with some of his comrades then, frustrated that they were talking about anything other than the barricade when it approached so quickly, frustrated that Marius, one of his closest friends and most trusted lieutenants had his head in the clouds, but it was also the last night when they'd all been together in the café, and he holds onto the memory tightly, his friends' laughter ringing in his ears. They'd been so hopeful that night, so full of life, absolutely ready to fight for their country, for freedom.

He feels the guilt haunting his every movement, guilt his friends would reprimand him for having, but he has it nonetheless.

Combeferre's entrance interrupts whatever Cosette's reply is, and he leans on the doorframe, surveying his friend.

"How is the most stubborn patient in all of France?" he asks, quirking his eyebrows.

He's paler than usual, Enjolras notices, and he knows he's not the only one who hasn't slept well.

"Stubborn," Cosette teases with a glance at Enjolras. "But I managed to get him to bend to my will."

"Ha," Combeferre chuckles. "I never thought that possible."

"You're not humorous," Enjolras remarks dryly.

"Well I'm going to go check on Papa," Cosette says, rising from her chair, resting a hand briefly on Enjolras' arm. "You behave, alright?"

"I shall try my best mademoiselle," he answers, watching as she leaves and Combeferre takes her place in the chair.

Combeferre was the first person he'd met upon his arrival in Paris at seventeen, and so his friend perhaps knows his faults and his insecurities better than anyone, and Enjolras feels very much as if Combeferre is attempting to read his mind.

"You splattered me in Laudanum last night, you know," Combeferre says by way of starting the conversation. "I'm still having trouble getting it out of my hair."

"I have a very faint memory of knocking the spoon out of your hand," Enjolras answers, sheepish.

"It's alright, I'm teasing you," Combeferre replies. "You don't exactly know what you're doing when you're overcome with fever."

His eyebrows knit together in the middle as he lifts the blankets briefly and takes stock of Enjolras' bandages; he looks back up, a stern expression on his countenance. "Now you listen to me, Enjolras. I know you aren't good at being a patient, aren't good at letting other people do things for you, but you've got to listen to me and to the doctor and to all of us. You've got to rest, because you've got a long recovery ahead of you. Bed rest, first of all, until the infection is completely gone, and it will be several weeks before we can take your arm out of the sling. And even when you can move about again you'll need a cane for a while because of your leg."

"I know," Enjolras says, nodding, but he senses Combeferre isn't quite finished.

"You won't relax," he continues. "When you sleep you aren't sleeping well, and if it takes me shoving more Laudanum down your throat for you to get proper rest then so be it. You know I'll do it, so don't test me."

"I just…I don't know how to relax in light of all this," Enjolras replies, thinking it foolish to be anything other than honest with a friend who knows him so well. He hates how lost he feels; he's always had such focus, such direction, and he isn't sure how to handle the opposite feeling. "Our friends are dead and it's my fault, Combeferre. I long ago accepted the fact that we might not emerge with victory, but I hoped our work would at the very least move things forward, make an impact. I was so certain the people would join us…"

"How can you say that this is your fault?" Combeferre says, his tone growing softer now, but he's still firm. "You are our leader, yes, but we were in this together. All of us. Joly, Jehan, Bahorel, Bousset, none of our fellow compatriots who died would want to hear you talk this way, Enjolras. We always knew we might fail, but we also knew it was time to take action."

"I just…" Enjolras says, trailing off, his hands twisting the sheets, a burning pain spreading through his stomach.

He's the orator of the group and yet words fail him. He's the chief and yet he feels so incredibly lost. He wants to reassure Combeferre instead of Combeferre reassuring him. His own words come back, mocking him.

"_Everybody keep the faith. For certain as our banner flies, we are not alone. The people too must rise…"_

"I know," Combeferre replies, catching his eye and holding the gaze, a hand resting on Enjolras' arm in a gesture of comfort. "Believe me, I know. We just…we have to take this one day at a time now."

Neither of them mentions the fact that the absence of Enjolras' body was likely noticed by now, that even as they speak the police hunt him, hunt anyone who escaped with him. Voices outside the door draw their attention.

"You've never been timid a day in your life," Courfreyrac says, but concern is evident in his tone. "What's the matter?"

"He'd want to see you," Feuilly adds with a fatherly air. He relates to Gavroche, Enjolras knows, because he was once a gamin on the streets, too. Gavroche's parents might still be alive, but that doesn't make him any less an orphan.

"Go on in there Gav," Grantaire urges, and Enjolras sees him look inside through the crack to see if he's actually awake.

There's silence for a moment, and then Grantaire takes Gavroche by the hand and pushes him gently into the room. The three of them stand back a bit, giving the boy room.

"Hi, Enjolras," Gavroche finally says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking mildly uncomfortable in his freshly laundered clothing.

Gavroche is a talkative child, always full of information and spunk and ceaseless courage, and seeing him so downtrodden pains Enjolras. But it's only fair; not only did he witness the deaths of the school boys who were like his brothers, but he'd also witnessed Eponine's Thenardier's death, and Marius had told them long ago that Gavroche was her little brother, the little brother her parents had kicked out onto the streets for lack of food to go around.

And none of those are things a ten-year-old should see.

"Come up here Gavroche," Enjolras says, patting the spot next to him on the bed. The Laudanum is making him drowsy again, but he blinks back the oncoming exhaustion, clenching his teeth against the fresh wave of pain.

Gavroche complies, looking a smidge more confident as he approaches and climbs up on the bed next to Enjolras, keen eyes surveying his bandages.

"I'm sorry about your sister Gavroche," Enjolras hears himself say, emotion rising in his throat. "I'm sorry about everything. I never should have let you stay…it was irresponsible of me."

"Wouldn't have left if you told me to," Gavroche mutters, a familiar defiance in his tone. "I wanted to fight for France. Marius tried to get Eponine to go too, but she wouldn't. Thenardiers are stubborn."

Enjolras can't help but smile at those words, and reaches out, his fingers touching Gavroche's face affectionately. Then quite suddenly there's a set of small arms around his neck, carefully avoiding his wounded shoulder. Enjolras wraps his good arm around the little boy, hugging him as tightly as possible without causing himself more harm.

"I'm glad you're not dead," Gavroche says, face buried in the material of Enjolras' shirt, borrowed from Valjean.

"So am I. And I'm also glad Monsieur Fauchelevent saved you from that bullet," Enjolras replies, looking straight into Gavroche's eyes when he pulls back. "Next time there's gun fire near you, stay back when we tell you, do you hear me?"

Gavroche nods, visibly relaxing.

"You can come in you know," Enjolras calls out to the other three. He's tired now, but he wants to stay awake for at least a bit longer, if only to reassure his friends.

Feuilly, Courferyrac, and Grantaire file in, each taking their respective chairs from the night before.

The absence of their friends rings loudly in the silence, and Enjolras can feel all their eyes on him.

"You should all sleep in beds tonight, alright?" he says, looking at each of them in turn. "Cosette told me you were all in here sleeping in these chairs."

"We were worried, Enjolras," Feuilly says. "You can't stop us from worrying."

"Or from sleeping in chairs," Courferyac adds, smirking at his friend, a twinkle momentarily overcoming the melancholy in his eyes.

"You're impossible," Enjolras replies, but the fondness in his tone is evident.

"So I've been told," Courfeyrac answers. "By you, actually."

"Worry aside," Enjolras continues. "Indulge me and sleep in your beds for a least a little while. Take shifts watching me." He glances at Grantaire, who appears to be contemplating something. "You especially Grantaire, I know you haven't slept in a bed since we've been here." He pauses, softening. "But thank you for calming me down last night. It's hazy, but I do remember knocking you over."

"I'm resilient," Grantaire says with a grin. "And you're welcome. Can't have your running off under the influence of a fever."

"Speaking of fevers," Combeferre says, with the air of one who is about to lecture another. "You need one more dose of Laudanum and sleep or you'll wake up like that again."

He very clearly wants to say "you're not out of danger, Enjolras" but with a glance at Gavroche, refrains.

"Wait," Grantaire says, and everyone turns, looking at him curiously. "I need to tell all of you something. I was going to wait for Marius, but we'll just have to tell him later."

He quickly rises and closes the door, listening for a moment and making sure no one stands nearby.

"What's going on Grantaire?" Feuilly asks. "Why are you worried about someone hearing?"

"Because," Grantaire says, looking far more serious than Enjolras has ever seen him. "I overheard something while we were in the sewers."

* * *

Javert was…

Honestly he wasn't sure what he was.

He'd let a revolutionary get away.

He'd let Valjean get away.

He'd planned on being dead and yet here he is, still alive.

Papers cover his normally immaculate desk, and other officers buzz around him, talking of nothing but the fallen barricade and its escaped fallen leader. Sketches of Enjolras are already being drawn up; soon they'll be plastered all over the city.

_Wanted alive for treason_, they read.

The blood wasn't even cleaned from the streets, the bodies not even in their graves, and the government was already eager to make a very public example of Enjolras and potentially any other insurgents found with him.

But they crave the blood of leader, and only a firing squad awaits that boy if he's found. A firing squad in the center of Paris so all can see, so they can all forget any burgeoning ideas of revolution that these boys inspired.

_They're school boys_, Javert thinks.

_Traitors_, he corrects himself.

_Children._

_Rebels._

He shakes his head, thinking back to the sewer, to Valjean.

Valjean, who carried one insurgent on his back.

Valjean, who'd let him go free.

Valjean's adopted daughter, who accidentally saved his life.

…but had Valjean also rescued the other rebels? Hidden them in the sewer tunnel until Javert turned away?

_Yes_.

_No._

He slams his hand loudly on the wood of his desk, causing several of his underlings to look in his direction for what feels like the thousandth time that day.

He has absolutely no proof that Valjean saved the other boys, has no proof that they're hiding in his house right now, Enjolras included.

He only suspects.

And with the current state of his psyche, suspicion isn't enough.

Because he wants to avoid Valjean at any and all costs, wants to cease thinking of him completely.

Except he can't because the damned man has invaded his brain and broken his code and turned his blacks and whites into irreversible shades of grey.

Damn him to hell.

Except the tiny voice inside Javert's head tells him that he might be from Heaven.

_Is he from heaven or from hell?_

The voice of the younger officer assigned to him for shadowing (much to his chagrin) interrupts his musings.

"Inspector Javert?" Bertrand asks, timid and unsure. Possibly even frightened. "Are you alright monsieur? You look a bit ill. Were you not up all night at the barricade?"

Javert looks up, instantly irritated.

"Yes, Bertrand, I was," he answers. "But I'm fine. I'm simply tired from all the chaos."

Bertrand looks like he doesn't believe his superior, but he walks away nevertheless because he's too afraid to argue.

Javert thinks again of throwing himself in the Seine.

But somehow he knows it's too late for that now.


	7. Revelations

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hi all! Wow, thank all of you again for the support this story is getting, it's just amazing! I'm doing my best to respond to everyone's reviews, but if I didn't last time around, I will this time. Thank you to everyone for reading, reviewing, and following. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 7: Revelations

Grantaire feels five pairs of eyes staring back at him.

"Did you…hear me?" he asks slowly. "I said I overheard…"

"We heard you," Combeferre says, placing a friendly hand on Grantaire's shoulder. "We're just…processing."

"Let me get this straight," Courfeyrac says, running his hands through his tuft of dark brown hair. "The inspector who infiltrated our barricade, the inspector we all thought killed by Monsieur Fauchelevant himself, _accosted _Monsieur Fauchelevant outside the sewers and let him go with Marius?"

"Yes," Grantaire answers. He knows full well it sounds insane, but he saw what he saw.

"And called him by the name Valjean and… 24601," Feuilly adds, perplexed.

"French prisoners are branded with numbers," Enjolras adds, finally speaking up. "Usually on their arms."

"That's what I remembered," Grantaire says, nodding. "But if he's some sort of of ex-convict, I mean, that's almost in our favor, isn't it? At first I was suspicious, but…"

"He'd certainly know how to keep out from under the police," Combeferre finishes. "Unless he's actually dangerous, although he hardly seems it…"

"He's not," Gavroche pipes up, ever ready with a piece of information. "I've known him for a while…him and Cosette, they give money and food to the poor a few times a week, me included. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Unless they're a member of the National Guard," Courfeyrac says. "He's a damn good shot."

"But why would the inspector let him go?" Enjolras asks, his brow furrowed. "That doesn't make any sense, especially if he had Marius in tow. It would have been obvious he was one of us. It seems Monsieur Fauchelevent risked more to save us than we even realized."

"We need to ask him about it," Grantaire says, firm. "He's said he wants to do whatever he can to help us and even though I normally wouldn't trust a stranger, my gut tells me to trust him. But I would like to know who he really is. There's too much danger afoot to keep secrets at this point."

"Even if he was a convict," Feuilly muses, looking around at his friends. "I don't know that it makes me trust him any less. We're all well versed in the injustice of the French penal system, and he saved our lives with every risk to his own. But I agree Grantaire, talking to him seems best."

"Providing he wants us to know his true identity," Combeferre remarks. "But who are we to care what his past is, if he saved our lives?"

"I agree, but before we speak to him we need to impart this information to Marius," Enjolras says. "It only seems right, considering that he's Monsieur Fauchelevent's potential son-in-law, and he might help us convince Fauchelevent that we don't care about his past, that who he is now is what matters. Although I don't know how that's possible at the moment with him at his grandfather's home and us unable to safely leave this house."

"If I know Marius," Courfeyrac says, with the tiniest hint of his usual smile. "And I think I do, he'll find his way here soon enough, no matter how injured he is. Cosette tells me he'll hardy settle down for worrying about us. Man's stubborn."

"Cosette told me that as well," Enjolras responds, his eyes drooping slightly, heavy with a toxic mix of pain and sleep, patches of red popping up on his skin again.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says almost immediately. "You need rest; your fever's going back up. How's the pain?"

"It's…" Enjolras trails off, clenching his teeth against a fresh onslaught.

"You need more Laudanum," Combeferre says, reaching for the bottle and leaving absolutely no room for argument.

An expression of weary defiance crosses Enjolras' face but he nods, shutting his eyes against the foul taste of the medication.

"Go get some sleep in some actual beds, the lot of you," he murmurs. "That's not a request."

"Absolutely, Apollo," Grantaire teases lightly, melancholy filling him to the brim; he can't stand seeing Enjolras like this, and if he's honest, the thought of anything happening to him fills Grantaire with more fear than seeing the National Guard burst through the barricade.

But Enjolras is already asleep.

Silence, anxiety, and grief cloak the room, hanging over their heads like the blackest rain cloud. They've been so busy escaping from the barricade and worrying over Enjolras and Marius that there's been little time to process what they've been through, to process the massive loss that hurts far too much for discussion just yet. Gavroche has fallen asleep so quietly that none of them noticed, and Grantaire retrieves him with gentle hands and curls him up in a vacant chair in case Enjolras wakes up thrashing from another nightmare.

"Combeferre," Feuilly says seriously. "Is Enjolras honestly going to be alright?"

Feuilly's never been one to mince words, and Grantaire watches Combeferre meet his eyes directly over his glasses, a shimmer of very real fear there.

"I…he should be," Combeferre answers. "I just…I need this fever to go down because it could turn ugly before I even know what's happening. Monsieur Fauchelevent sent a note to Doctor Figueron asking him to come tonight so he can check in. Marius is lucky; I don't know how he escaped that sewer without an infection, but I'm immensely grateful he did, especially with that abdomen wound."

"Probably because Monsieur Fauchelevent carried him," Grantaire says, a rush of hot guilt spreading through him. "Enjolras got stuck with me."

"Don't you dare say that," Courfeyrac says, harsher than Grantaire's ever remembered hearing him. "You were ready to get shot with him if that National Guardsman army general hadn't changed his mind and helped us instead. And you carried him all the way here with almost no assistance."

"He's right," Combeferre replies. "We can't blame ourselves…we…it won't bring our friends back, and it won't make Enjolras or Marius better. Enjolras feels guilty enough for all of us, and I did my best to soothe that."

"Rationally he knows we were all in this as much as he was, that all of us knew what we were getting into," Feuilly says wisely, hand absentmindedly smoothing Enjolras' covers. "But the emotions of a person are less forgiving, and I'm certain the fever isn't helping."

"They'll be hunting us, won't they?" Grantaire asks, unable to keep that particular idea to himself anymore. "For all of us, but for Enjolras especially. All the police in the city know him, know he led us."

"We're all considered traitors," Combeferre answers. "They'll have noticed Enjolras' absence for certain, and that inspector seeing Monsieur Fauchelevent with Marius complicates things…" he pauses briefly, unsure how to continue. "We're together and we're alive, and right now that's what matters. We will keep each other safe."

Silence falls amongst them again, the ghosts of their so recently deceased friends present in their overwhelming, crushing absence.

* * *

Valjean is near a set of shops looking for spare clothing for the boys when he lays eyes on the first one.

A poster with a strikingly accurate sketch of Enjolras' face.

_Wanted alive for treason against the state_…

The barricade fell barely two days ago and they're already hunting the boy.

Valjean decides that when Cosette goes to visit Marius tomorrow he will speak privately with M. Gillenormand; sooner rather than later, he imagines, these boys will need to get out of Paris, and the assistance of Marius' grandfather would be an immense help. Grandfather and grandson might have had a falling out over politics, but now the elderly man is relieved beyond measure that Marius was alive. He'd offered assistance to Valjean in any way he could, and took to Cosette almost immediately; Valjean's quite sure the man's already planning the wedding.

"I'll be damned if Marius or any of those boys come to harm if I am capable of preventing it," he'd said. "I might not understand their actions, but they're just school boys."

Valjean steps closer to the poster, amazed at its accuracy. Enjolras is wanted alive, he suspects, so that the government can make a very public example of him, and Valjean feels a sharp surge of protective instinct flood through him. He's only known these boys for a few days, but affection for them already burgeons in his heart. He'd caught Grantaire looking at him for longer than seemed normal this morning while they ate, and a sharp anxiety twinges in his stomach; he wonders if Grantaire overheard his confrontation with Javert.

His past and his potential future are colliding, and he knows now that he cannot wait until he's gone from this world to tell Cosette the truth.

And if Cosette knows, Marius will have to know.

And if Grantaire heard him, there's no way around the truth. But, he tells himself, they are also running from the law.

A voice snaps him not so gently out of his musings and he turns around, a young police officer standing behind him.

"That's the leader of the last barricade that fell," the officer says, stepping up next to Valjean. "He wasn't among the bodies. You're looking at the poster awfully intently monsieur, have you seen him?"

"Oh, no," Valjean responds, hoping he sounds nonchalant, believable, and not like he wants to run away as fast as his legs can take him. "I read in the paper about the barricades, but I've never seen this boy. He looks young," he says casually, stepping back.

"Ruddy schoolboys," the officers says, and Valjean thinks he looks like no more than a schoolboy himself. "There's a great deal of dead bodies because of them and their ridiculous ideals." His eyes look down, landing on the rather large amount of bags in Valjean's hands. "I see you've been doing some shopping, monsieur. Do you have a big family?"

"Seven sons," Valjean says, smiling. "One daughter. It's a bit…hectic in our house at the moment, so I'd best be getting back."

"Of course," the officer says, apologetic. "But if you see this rebel, do come into the station."

"I will," Valjean says, tasting the lie on his tongue before walking away at a normal pace so as not to arouse suspicion.

He rounds the corner and goes out of sight, watching as the officer walks away and exhaling a breath he'd been holding for longer than he realized. He remains there for a moment, cautious eyes flitting over a pair of women standing near the poster, carefully observing the officer depart before breaking into whispers he can't make out from his position. One is younger, probably somewhere around twenty-eight with long brown hair, but the other woman is a bit older, long blonde hair shining in the sunlight, her clothes suggesting she comes from wealth. She turns her head, and he's taken aback by her eyes.

They're bright, piercing blue, and they look identical to Enjolras'.

He moves closer, feigning a glance at one of the shops, their soft conversation floating into his ears just enough to make sense of.

"There's…" the blonde woman says, very clearly trying to keep her composure but only partially succeeding. "There's already posters up."

"That must mean they're alive," the younger woman says in a whisper. "I just…"

"Don't know where," says the blonde woman, who looks over at Valjean again. She catches his eye and he waves them over. They're hesitant at first, but after a moment the older woman takes the brunette's hand and walks over to him.

"Monsieur," says the older woman, one brow raised. "Were you listening to our conversation?"

"Am I correct in assuming that the both of you are relatives of boys who have been at the barricade?" he asks in response.

"Are you a police officer?" she shoots back, and he knows instantly that this must be Enjolras' mother; the resemblance is uncanny in more ways than one.

"No, Madame," Valjean says, very nearly laughing at the irony. "I am not. But I need you to answer my question."

His eyes dart around the surrounding area, but there's no sign of any more officers.

"Yes," she whispers, a fragile sound edging into her voice. "Yes. My son was there, and her brother," she continues, pulling the other woman forward slightly. "Rene Enjolras and Lucien Grantaire." She says the names so quietly Valjean barely hears them.

"They're at my home," he says, matching her volume level and leaning in closer. "I helped a few boys escape, your son and your brother included."

"Who?" the younger woman asks.

"Enjolras, Grantaire, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and Marius," Valjean answers. "And their young friend Gavroche."

"Just who you said," Enjolras' mother breathes, glancing at Grantaire's sister. "What kind of state are they in? Are they hurt? Is Rene hurt?"

Valjean hesitates, and that's all the evidence Enjolras' mother needs.

"How badly?" she asks, absentmindedly squeezing her companion's hand. "What happened?"

"Enjolras was shot twice," he says, gentle as possible with such harsh news. "Once in the shoulder, once in the leg, and he acquired an infection, but I summoned a doctor who is very positive about his prognosis as long as the infection doesn't get out of control. I promise you Madame, they're well taken care of. The others are fine…or as fine as would be expected."

"Why would you rescue them?" she insists. "I don't…"

"My daughter is in love with Monsieur Marius," Valjean says, putting a very careful hand on her shoulder. "And when I saw my opportunity to save some of the other boys, I took it."

"Thank you," Madame Enjolras says, softening. She reaches out for his hand and clasps it briefly, trusting him.

"You are a blessing monsieur…" Grantaire's sister says, realizing she doesn't know his name.

"Fauchelevent," he finishes. "And please, come with me. My carriage is just down the street."

And so they follow.

* * *

Combeferre doesn't expect the sudden, horrified shout that echoes through the room.

Across from him, Grantaire jolts from his slumber, Courfeyrac's eyes go so wide they look about to pop, Feuilly jumps, and Gavroche's hands clench into fists at his sides.

Enjolras sits up, the scream turning into a hoarse cough on his lips, his breaths shallow, ragged, and sharp.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says, heart throbbing with agony at seeing his best friend like this, and fights to keep his emotions in control. "Enjolras, you were dreaming, it's alright."

But it's not.

Enjolras' cheeks are flaming red and he's shivering to the point of convulsing, goose bumps racing up and down his arms in droves. Enjolras looks up at him, eyes shining with a fever that rages like wildfire.

"Combeferre?" he asks. "Is that you?"

"Yes Enjolras, yes," he says, placing a hand on Enjolras' head, heat radiating from his skin.

"Tell," Enjolras stammers, a far cry from his usual eloquence. "Tell Joly to come over here and help you."

Combeferre feels a metaphorical fist punch him in the chest at the sound of their dead friend's name, at the idea that in his feverish state, Enjolras has forgotten he's dead.

Or worse, he's hallucinating.

"Enjolras," he asks, slow and deliberate with his words. "Do you see Joly?"

"Of course," Enjolras responds, annoyed. "He's right outside the door."

Combeferre closes his eyes for a moment, a whirlpool of dread starting in his stomach and growing with each second.

"Enjolras," he says, forcing the long withheld tears from his voice. "Joly died at the barricade."

"No," Enjolras insists, angry now. "He's right there. You see him, don't you Courfeyrac? Grantaire? Feuilly?"

"Enjolras," Feuilly says, voice tremulous with emotion. "He's not here."

"He is!" Enjolras roars. "He…"

A furious convulsion cuts off his protest and he falls against the pillow, wrapping his arms around himself, blonde hair sticking to his forehead. Before Combeferre even asks, Cosette appears at his side with cold cloths.

Enjolras, however, is not ready to cooperate, thrashing violently when they come near.

"Grantaire, Courfeyrac, hold him please," Combeferre says. "Feuilly, if you will please take Gavroche, he doesn't need to see this."

All three do as Combeferre directs, and for once Gavroche doesn't argue.

Combeferre pulls the blanket off and Enjolras attempts to curl into himself, but Grantaire and Courfeyrac's hold on him makes it impossible.

"We need to cool his whole body down, and he's not going to like it because he's freezing even if his body is far warmer than it should be," Combeferre says. "So keep a firm hold on him."

"Papa hasn't returned with the carriage yet," Cosette says, a resolute expression on her face. "But I'm taking a fiacre and retrieving Doctor Figeuron, and then dropping a note at Marius' grandfather's home. He needs to know what's happening."

"Thank you, Cosette," Combeferre answers, grateful.

"I'll go as quickly as possible," she answers. "And I'll tell Toussaint to bring more towels up."

The moment she's gone Combeferre looks at Courfeyrac and Grantaire; terror flashes in their eyes, but they're determined to help their friend.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says, leaning down and speaking softly so as not to alarm him further. "I'm going to remove your shirt so I can try and cool down your body, alright?"

For a brief moment the man beneath the fever emerges and nods, limping against Grantaire and Courfeyrac's grip, exhaustion winning out.

But Combeferre knows full well it won't last, and he silently prays to whoever might listen that Enjolras survives the night.

A/N: Before anyone freaks out, I promise you I'm not going to kill Enjolras, not after I've already saved him! :) His getting worse leads to a couple of other planned plot points, so never fear.


	8. Into the Nightmare

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thanks again to everyone for the support this story is getting. You reading, reviewing, and following this story means so much to me, and it keeps me inspired. So thank you again! Also, I know this update was a bit slower than normal; there's been some insanity going on at work and it got in the way of me updating this on time. But I do hope you enjoy the chapter, and please let me know what you think!

Chapter 8: Into the Nightmare

Cosette's fiacre comes to a stop outside the Gillenormand residence and she pays the driver, exiting as quickly as possible. She'd already gone to Doctor Figeron's home and alerted him to Enjolras' condition; he'd taken his own carriage there, promising his haste. She runs up the stairs as rapidly as her shoes and dress allow; she knows it's terrible manners to call without first sending a note, but she has no other choice; Enjolras is in trouble, and Marius needs to know.

She takes hold of the brass door handle and knocks, hearing the sound of footsteps almost instantly. The door swings open, the housekeeper's face appearing before her.

"Madmoiselle Fauchelvent," she says, eyes widening in surprise. "What brings you here? Is everything alright?"

"No, actually," Cosette says, hating that she has to stand on ceremony at a time like this. "One of Marius' friends, Monsieur Enjolras, he's fallen very, very ill, and I wanted…"

"Of course," the housekeeper responds, opening the door wide. "I'll show you up to Monsieur's room immediately and then let Monsieur and Madame Gillenormand know. They're dining at the moment; they haven't eaten properly since Monsieur Marius' return."

"Thank you Madame," Cosette answers. "I felt Marius should know, although I hate distressing him."

"He's hardly settled since you and your father left," the housekeeper confides. "His aunt, his grandfather, and the doctor keep trying to get him to sleep, and I think he finally did just out of exhaustion, but he's been so worried about his friends."

Cosette nods, thanking her once again before quietly entering Marius' room while the housekeeper informs Monsieur and Madame Gillenormand. It's against what's proper, she's sure, to be alone with Marius right now, but she couldn't care less about rules in light of the situation.

"Marius," she says, hating to wake him when it finally looks as if he's sleeping peacefully. "Marius my love, I need you to wake up."

"Cosette?" he questions, eyes blinking open slowly. "Cosette…what?"

"I have some news for you, but promise you'll stay calm so you don't hurt yourself," she says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder so he can't sit up too fast and aggravate his wound.

"What is it?" he asks, a jolt of tense energy veiling his eyes. "Cosette…"

"Enjolras is ill," she replies softly, as if that might help ease the blow. "His infection's gotten worse and his fever is so high he's hallucinating. I've sent Dr. Figueron to our home, but I thought…I thought you needed to know."

"I have to get there," Marius says without a moment of hesitation. "I have to return home with you. I need to be with my friends, I need to make sure Enjolras is alright."

"Marius," Cosette argues. "You can't, you're injured. Traveling in a carriage…"

"Cosette," he answers sitting up very carefully so he won't alarm her and taking one of her hands in his own. "I cannot simply sit here while I know Enjolras could be, could be…" he trails off, unable to complete his thought.

She knows what the missing word is, though.

_Dying._

"I'd do anything in my power to get you there," she says, squeezing his hand. "But I don't know how to do it safely."

"Cosette, I'm not capable of resting while I know Enjolras is in this state, while my other friends are there holding vigil and I am here, apart from them," he replies, looking directly into her eyes. "So many are already dead, I can't…" an unintentional sob mars his words and Cosette feels her heart shaking in her chest, tears filling her own eyes.

A rush of love for Marius overtakes her, compassion and affection for his friends growing within her soul. She wraps an arm around him gingerly, embracing him as best she can when he's injured, and he presses his face into her shoulder, still not letting go of her hand.

How can she deny him?

But how can she get him there?

Her thoughts are interrupted by Monsieur Gillenormand's entrance.

"Madmoiselle Fauchelevent!" he exclaims. "Marie informed us that one of Marius' friends is gravely ill from his wounds, is that true?"

"Yes monsieur," she says, turning to face him, still grasping Marius' hand. "I was riding for the doctor and thought to come and tell Marius."

"That is very kind of you," he replies, looking over Marius with worried eyes. "I do hope he'll be alright, there's certainly been enough death around us lately. Is there anything I can do?"

"Grandfather, I must go to my friends," Marius says without hesitation. "I _have_ to see them."

"Marius," Gillenormand answers, disbelief prevalent in his voice. "How can you possibly see fit to leave this house in your state? You are injured and the doctor has demanded bed rest, your wound has not even begun healing…"

"Cosette's home is but a short ride from here," Marius persists. "I am thankful for everything you're doing for me, I'm so happy that you are back in my life, but I must go to them. I'll be careful, I swear to you."

Cosette watches as Marius meets his grandfather's eyes, sees something pass between them that she can't quite name, sensing that Gillenormand will give in to Marius' request.

"I do not like it," the elderly man finally responds. "But I shall permit it because I know you won't rest until you see them. You are stubborn, Marius." There's a reprimand in his tone, but it's also tinged with fondness. "Although getting you there will be difficult and you must swear to be cautious and follow all directions. Do you agree?"

"Yes," Marius says, taking his free hand and grasping his grandfather's arm affectionately. "I promise."

"I shall tell Pierre to ready the carriage and I will ride there with you and Mademoiselle Fauchelvent," he adds, turning toward the door, concern and uncertainty etched into his features.

"Thank you for coming to tell me Cosette," Marius says, watching him go. "You are perhaps more wonderful than I even knew."

Cosette smiles, blushing.

"It's the least I could do," she says, eyes running from his face and down to the thick bandage wrapped around his abdomen, visible even through his shirt, a symbol of the battle he fought, of the cause he stood for with his friends.

The cause that nearly stole him from her, the cause that would have succeeded if not for her saint of a father.

But it's a cause she understands; the story of her past is murky with so many pieces still missing, but even though she was only a child then, she will never forget her time in the inn with the horrible Thenardiers, of nearly always being starving, of walking about in rags and wooden shoes that made her feet bleed. She remembers the night her papa rescued her and took her away, knowing full well she's blessed, that most children in her situation were not so lucky.

Marius and his friends fought for children like her, fought that they might have food to eat, a warm bed to sleep in…that a better world could and would exist, establishing equality for all.

She believes in that cause.

But she's also relieved that her Marius still lives, and she silently prays that he's not forced to mourn yet another death.

* * *

_Enjolras stands amongst the shattered glass and splintered wood of the upper floor of the Café Musain, his surviving friends gathered around him. He's dressed again in his red jacket and black trousers, the white shirt beneath stained pink with blood, the tri-color floret crumpled, the edges turned inward now as if it too, has lost all hope._

_He feels Combeferre firmly grasp one of his hands, Grantaire hesitantly taking the other. Courfeyrac's hand is on his right shoulder and Feuilly's on his left. Gavroche stands at Grantaire's side, his small hand resting in Grantaire's larger one. With all of them touching him he feels how very alive they are, feels the blood pumping through their veins, feels their warmth, feels their palpable grief as they stare around at their meeting place, their second home._

_But where is Marius?_

_As if in answer to his silent question, Enjolras hears slow, pained footsteps making their way up the stairs, and they break contact, turning around to see the newcomer._

_It's Marius, as Enjolras suspected, his steps heavy with loss._

_He embraces each of them, coming to Enjolras last and hugging him tightly, though with his sprained wrist and Enjolras' injured shoulder, it's a bit awkwardly done. Enjolras sees a flash of blonde hair and realizes Cosette is at the bottom of the stairs, but she's giving them their time alone with each other._

_With the memory of their dead friends._

_Quite suddenly the sunny sky outside grows black, and Enjolras' eyes widen as white specters appear in the growing darkness._

_Jean Prouvaire sits in the corner, bright red wounds dotting his white, hazy form. He's writing poetry in one of his notebooks as he had a thousand times, but when he looks over at them his eyes are black rather than green, the shy, genuine twinkle replaced with tears of blood._

_Joly and Bousset sit nearby, Bossuet's arm flung around the medical student's shoulder. And when they look up, their eyes are as black as Jean Prouvaire's._

_Except they speak rather than remain silent, their voices harsh, unforgiving and full of malice._

"_I'm an unlucky sort," Bossuet says, locking eyes with Enjolras, his usual good humor lost. "I suppose my unlucky death doesn't come as a surprise to you, then, doesn't bother you."_

"_Of course it does!" Enjolras exclaims. "You have to know it does."_

"_The marble lover of liberty doesn't care what he sacrifices for revolution," Joly adds. "What's one less doctor in the world to him, for freedom, even if the doctor was one of his closest friends? Never mind that the freedom we fought so hard for was a lie. The people abandoned us, Enjolras."_

"_No, no," Enjolras whispers, and he hears Combeferre whispering in his ear._

"_It's a dream my friend, we're trapped in a dream."_

_In a nightmare._

"_These are not our friends," Marius echoes from beside Courfeyrac. "They are twisted representatives of them." _

"_To Enjolras!" Bahorel's voice shouts, his own white form appearing in the corner, surrounded by a knot of students with transparent glasses of wine. "To Enjolras, my friends, who survived though we did not, who __**ran**__ from the barricade, who instructed our surviving compatriots to run."_

_Bahorel turns to face him, a sinister glint in eyes that are usually always ready for a joke or a laugh, constantly ablaze with his mischief._

"_Bahorel," Enjolras says in a reverent whisper. "I didn't…I wanted to save who I could. So we could fight again, so we could try again. You never wanted to give up before, not until France was free."_

"_And save them you did," Bahorel says, the expressions of the students surrounding him growing somber, growing angry. "And for what?" he spits. "So they can hide away forever from those who hunt you? You're a dead man, Enjolras, and so are they. You've only delayed the inevitable. Our dream? It was a fantasy, and we should have _**known**_."_

_Enjolras falls hard to his knees, burying his face in his hands; the life of his surviving friends warming him, the ghosts of his fallen friends a cold wind on his face. A dry, strangled sob forces its way from his throat, drenched in a scream._

* * *

An awful, gut-wrenching half-scream, half-sob shoots through the silence like a bullet the moment Monsieur Fauchelvent opens the door; Flora Enjolras' stomach sinks, hand trembling slightly from its place in Adrienne's.

Something terrible has happened to Rene, because even though she's never heard him make such a sound before, she knows it came from him.

So despite manners, despite the fact that she's never been in this house before, despite the fact that she's just met Monsieur Fauchelevent, she bolts up the stairs and toward the source of the sound, her hand slipping from Adrienne's.

She picks up her skirts, taking the stairs two at a time, the urgent, worried words of Fauchelevent and his housekeeper fading into nonsense behind her. She bursts into the room her son's name on her lips.

"Rene!" she shouts, the sight before her worse than she even imagined; the man she assumes is the doctor hovers above her son, who is twisting in every direction even as two of his friends hold his arms and legs. He seems unaware that he's aggravating his wounds, unaware of anyone's presence but whatever specters haunt the nightmare from which he's awoken. She sees the blood from his wounds seeping through the bandages on his shoulder and his leg, spreading slowly.

The boys turn at the sound of her voice, and the only face she recognizes looks up. Rene's written to her of all his friends, complete with names and tales of their antics, but Combeferre's the only one she's met in person; Rene brought him to visit during his first break from university.

"Madame Enjolras?" Combeferre asks, surprised. "What…"

"Monsieur Fauchelevent found me," she says. "Along with Adrienne," she looks around the room for the boy she thinks might be Grantaire, and they land on the young man with near-black hair standing beside Combeferre, his eyes lit with terror. "Grantaire's sister."

The boy looks up, a question in his eyes, and she knows that it's Grantaire.

"Adrienne's here?" he asks. "How?"

But her answer dies in her throat the moment she looks closer at her son, who has ceased writhing and instead gasps for breath.

"Joly, Jehan," he whispers, eyes clouded with a mixture of fever, grief, and pain. "Bahorel, Bossuet, all of you, I'm so sorry."

The doctor looks at her, nodding toward Rene, silently telling her to go to him. The two boys holding him down (she assumes they are Courfeyrac and Feuilly) let go but don't back far away for fear he'll start fighting again; she hears Monsieur Fauchelevent and Adrienne walk in, but all of her attention focuses on her son. She sits down beside him on the bed, taking one hand in her own, gentle as if she were picking up a piece of heirloom china, hoping she doesn't startle him. He jerks slightly, but looks up and meets her eyes, the terror of the dream melting away and putting him back into a shaky reality.

"M…mother?" he asks, clearly unsure whether she's real or if she's a product of his fever-driven hallucinations.

"Yes darling, it's me," she answers, leaning forward and kissing his hot, sweat-soaked forehead. "I'm really here. And your friends are here, and Monsieur Fauchelevent's doctor is here, and they want to help you, want to take care of you and make you better."

"I need to make sure my friends are safe," he insists, holding tightly to her hand. "I need to make sure they're all safe. Bahorel said, he said they were in danger."

"It was a dream love," she says, brushing the wet blonde tendrils of hair from his forehead. "It was only a dream."

"They aren't safe!" he cries. "They aren't."

She hears Monsieur Fauchelevent come to her side, his voice benevolent and filled with warmth.

"Enjolras your friends are safe here," he says, looking directly into Rene's eyes. "I promise you and I swear to you that I will keep them safe."

She watches her son nod, watches him relax ever so slightly, his tense muscles giving way.

"We need to get your fever down Rene," Flora continues. "Will you let us help you?"

He nods again, squeezing her hand. It's breaking her to see him like this, her passionate, courageous, determined son.

It's breaking her to see him so broken…

Taking advantage of his calmer state, the doctor administers another dose of Laudanum and Rene's eyes flutter closed again. She moves further onto the bed, lifting his head and cradling it in her lap as she'd done when he was ill as a child. Silence falls amongst the crowded room, broken after a few moments by the sound of slow footsteps making their way up the stairs.

"Careful, Marius," a female voice says. "Please, or you'll hurt yourself."

A young man and a young woman enter the already crowded room, which is now full almost to bursting. The young man is hunched over slightly, one hand resting gingerly on his abdomen.

"Cosette," Monsieur Fauchelevent says, looking utterly surprised, a look which he doesn't wear well. "How on earth did you get Marius here?"

"I insisted monsieur," Marius replies. "And my grandfather rode with us here, in his carriage. He's waiting downstairs with your housekeeper. I had to come and see my friends, to see about Enjolras."

He winces in pain and one of the boys pushes an empty chair toward him, helping him sit down.

"What's going on?" Marius asks, looking around at his friends, eyes landing on Enjolras, and Flora notes the devastation shading his eyes. "How is he?"

It's quiet again for a moment until the doctor steps forward, looking grim.

"I…his infection is much worse than before," he says, melancholy lacing his words. "With Combeferre's help I'm going to do the best I can to lower his fever and rid his body of the toxins, but he…there's the possibility he might not make it."

Flora feels suddenly, violently ill, feels as if someone has struck her directly in the stomach, feels the world spin around her. This cannot happen, not to her boy, not after he survived the barricade, not when he's meant to change the lives of countless people in his fight for the freedom of France. Tearing her eyes away from Rene's sleeping face, she glances up at the sound of the door opening again, watching as Grantaire walks out of the room, followed quickly by his sister. A boy with a tuft of wavy brown hair follows, and she guesses, though she's not sure how, that he's Courfeyrac. The boy who must be Feuilly reaches for Combeferre's hand because he's visibly shaking now, and a small blonde boy who can't be more than ten races from the room, the door slamming hard against the wall.

"No!" Marius exclaims, almost angry. "That…no."

"I'll do my best son," the doctor answers, taking the pile of damp towels Fauchlevent hands him. "I promise you."

Flora holds her son tighter, hoping that his promise is enough.

A/N: Again, I'm going to promise you here that I am not, repeat, am not going to kill Enjolras. Again, his getting worse ties into a couple of plot points, one of which will be revealed in the next chapter. He will make it, I swear to you. Also, if you're looking for a great one shot to read, SerynnLux has written a fantastic one that was inspired by my own one-shot "Blood-Stained Memories" entitled "Kindling the Flame" centering around the reaction of the National guard after the barricade fell. It made me all kinds of teary, so I'd suggest checking it out. :)


	9. Moments

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you again for all the amazing support this story is receiving, I'm so thrilled! And to all my anonymous reviewers to whom I cannot respond, thank you so very much for your feedback! I do hope everyone enjoys this chapter, it's extra long!

Chapter 9: Moments

In a matter of minutes Combeferre finds himself alone with Enjolras; Feuilly's gone to check on Gavroche, Courfeyrac and Grantaire's sister have gone to see where Grantaire went when he slipped out, Cosette has practically dragged a disgruntled Marius to settle in to the last guest room, Monsieur Fauchelvent is speaking with Monsieur Gillenormand, and Madame Enjolras is speaking with Doctor Figueron.

Combeferre suspects Grantaire has gone looking for wine, worry swooping through his stomach at the sort of drinking this news might bring on their friend, but he'd locked eyes with Courfeyrac for mere seconds and Courfeyrac immediately went after Grantaire. It's a good thing, because Combeferre is rooted to this chair.

There's no way he can leave Enjolras' side now, not unless someone forcefully removes him.

His best friend might die.

His best friend…

He can't finish his thought the second time.

His wrenches his eyes off the floor and they land on Enjolras, who sleeps fitfully on the bed; cold cloths cover his forehead, his chest, his arms, the bedcovers and borrowed sleeping pants twisted around his legs. He assisted Doctor Figueron in putting fresh bandages on Enjolras' leg and shoulder, a new white bandage now wrapped around his friend's forearm where the doctor pushed the lancet into his vein.

"Bloodletting is usually my last tactic," he'd said sadly. "Especially considering how much blood your friend has already lost, but I'm going to give it a try."

Even in his drugged, exhausted state Enjolras had fidgeted unconsciously, and so Combeferre held him down, hating it all the while. Combeferre could have easily debated the doctor for an hour on the pros and cons of bloodletting, and the opinions of some of the most prolific medical minds, but there hadn't been time. No one's certain of its efficacy, but desperate times, and all of that.

He takes Enjolras' hand and grasps it, eyes moving over the paler-than-usual face, feeling the tears gather behind his eyes. Enjolras is the brother he never had, the friend with whom he shares everything, someone who understands his mind better than he even does, sometimes.

He's read so many books, so many essays, listened to so many lectures, but none of his professors, no author, has prepared him for the possible death of his greatest friend. Ever since the moment Enjolras spoke of revolution he knew this might happen, but the idea and the reality are entirely different.

The others will look to him, he knows, if Enjolras dies, and he doesn't know how well he'll be able to stand up against such a shattering loss, doesn't know how he'll cope, but knows even still, that he'll have to find a way to be there for his remaining friends.

"Dammit, Enjolras," he whispers. "This isn't how it was supposed to go. If we were to die, we were to die together at the barricade, not like this, with you dying from wounds and leaving the rest of us behind, leaving me behind. We've lost _enough_, how can we lose you too? How can _I_ lose you?"

His memory flies backward, sending him to the very first time he'd met Enjolras.

_Combeferre takes the stairs two at a time up to the second level of the Café Musain; although the bottom level is noisy and crowded, he's found the top floor strangely quiet and perfect for reading or studying. There's a small knot of men at a table drinking wine and playing cards, and then one lone blonde man reading very intently in the corner, his drink almost untouched. For whatever reason his eyes catch on the boy, who looks close to his own age (eighteen), although still younger, somehow. He has the look of a student about him, and he's different from the crowd that usually frequents this café, which is essentially in the slums of Paris. _

_He sits down at a nearby table and opens his book, finally having time amidst his first term of medical studies to read something for pleasure, although he suspects most people might not think reading philosophy is something to do in one's leisure time, but he doesn't mind. He reads for a few minutes until he hears a voice speaking to him._

"_Condorcet?" asks the young man he'd noticed earlier. "That's an interesting choice. What do you think of his Paradox?"_

"_I agree wholeheartedly so far," Combeferre answers, looking up in surprise, eyes flitting over to the speaker's texts. "Robespierre and…" he takes note of the peeling edges of the closed book. "It looks as if you've read that Rousseau a few times."_

"_I don't think I could read it enough," he answers. "But I thought I'd verse myself in Robespierre as well, see what the man himself had to say."_

"_You're a republican then?" Combeferre asks, lowering his voice a bit. _

"_I am," he replies matching Combeferre's tone, blue eyes blazing with such intensity it takes Combeferre aback. "And you?"_

"_Freedom is the greatest thing mankind can wish for," Combeferre says in answer, and the corners of the student's mouth turn upward in a soft smile. _

_Combeferre notices that the barmaid serving the group of men in the corner is making eyes at the young man he's talking to, but he doesn't seem to notice in the slightest, enthusiasm entering his tone as he continues._

"_You're a student then?" he asks._

"_A medical student, yes," Combeferre says, smiling himself, having the sudden, warm feeling that he's just made a friend. "It's just my first term, so I'm a bit new to Paris."_

"_Mine as well. Law. I moved here from the south," the young man answers, putting out his hand. "Enjolras."_

"_Combeferre."_

And so their lives changed on that otherwise ordinary day in the Café Musain.

A hoarse voice interrupts Combeferre's musings and he looks down to see Enjolras opening his eyes again.

"Combeferre?" he asks, voice barely audible.

"Yes, Enjolras," he says, leaning closer. "It's me. How are you feeling?"

"I…tired," Enjolras answers, obviously about to say "fine" out of reflex. "Did I…is my mother actually here?"

"She is," Combeferre says. "She's just outside speaking with the doctor."

Enjolras relaxes a little at that, reassured that his mother was not simply another of his fever-driven hallucinations.

"Combeferre?" Enjolras asks again, sounding more lucid, more like himself than he has in hours. "Am I dying?"

He's never lied to Enjolras, not once.

But now he can't stop himself.

"You aren't well," Combeferre replies diplomatically, squeezing his hand. "But we're doing everything we can, Enjolras, I swear to you. Doctor Figeuron says if we can just get you through tonight, if we can just get this fever down, you'll be just fine. You don't give up on us, now, alright? "

Enjolras catches his eye and nods, his emotions unreadable, but he keeps a firm hold of his friend's hand. Combeferre senses that Enjolras knows he isn't being entirely truthful, but they let it rest.

"Sleep Enjolras, please," Combeferre pleads. "That will help heal you."

Enjolras nods again, the smallest hint of fear in his expression, fear that only Combeferre would recognize as such.

"I'm so cold," he says. "Is it possible to remove these wet cloths?"

"For now," Combeferre says, making to remove them and pulling the blankets up around his friend's shoulders. "I'll need to put them back on in an hour or so."

"Alright," Enjolras says, sleep coating his eyes again. "I'm so sorry for worrying you, for being difficult…thank you for…"

"Don't talk like that," Combeferre says, ever gentle. "Just sleep, and we'll all be here when you wake up."

With that, Enjolras sends a weary smile at his friend and closes his eyes, once again lost to sleep. Combeferre buries his face in his hands, allowing his emotions to pour forth in the silence, tears pushing over the edges of his eyes and flowing down his cheeks quiet unabated. He doesn't even hear the door open, but after a few moments feels a pair of distinctly feminine hands wrap around his trembling shoulders.

"It's alright Combeferre," Madame Enjolras says. "It's alright."

She's crying too, her voice broken at the mere thought of losing her child, and Combeferre can't even imagine what that's like, losing someone to whom you gave life. He feels a rush of fury toward Enjolras' father, for his distance and his lack of empathy toward his son's cause.

"I should have protected him," Combeferre whispers to her. "I should have found a way, I'm so sorry."

"You know you couldn't," she tells him. "You know he wouldn't have let you. His cause and his friends are his entire world, and he'd rather die than have any of you lose your lives. No one wants to die, but he was willing to, for this, if it came to it, even if it breaks my heart. All of you were willing."

Combeferre turns and embraces her in return, praying to whatever divine force might exist that his friend will live.

Because a world without Enjolras would be a much darker place.

* * *

Grantaire doesn't even really know where he's going…he only knows he's going. He can sense, he thinks, where Monsieur Fauchelevent…Valjean…whatever his name actually is, keeps the wine.

_He might not make it…_

_Yes he will_, Grantaire thinks silently. _He's Enjolras, he's…he can't die._

_He can._

No.

_Yes._

No.

_He's not actually made of marble, you fool. You might not want to admit that your shining, blazing Apollo-charismatic leader of men, inspirational soldier for the republic, idealist, intellectual, friend-is human. But he is, and his body fights against a sinister force allowed in by the bullets of a government who only wanted to knock an angel from the heavens. _

Physically speaking, Enjolras is just as human as he is, Grantaire knows, even if the insane lack of sleep their chief runs on might attest otherwise. He spots a door next to the kitchen and opens it, seizing a candle from the table as he goes, because there's no sunlight past the small set of stairs. He reaches the bottom, peering around.

A wine cellar, just as he'd thought. It's small, but it's something.

He's not exactly proud of intruding so blatantly on their benevolent, albeit mysterious rescuer's hospitality, but he needs something, _anything_, to numb the terror striking his body like lightning. He pulls what looks like the least expensive bottle down from the rack (he's not _that_ bad a guest, and Monsieur Fauchelevent likely won't miss this one), opens it, and swigs directly from the bottle. Minutes pass and he's about halfway through the bottle when he hears the door open.

"R?" Courfeyrac's voice calls. "Are you down here?"

He doesn't answer and takes another swig instead, Courfeyrac's footsteps growing closer.

"Grantaire," he says, cautious, gentle, as he approaches. "Put the bottle down."

Grantaire laughs, bitterness wrapping around the sound.

"That's Enjolras' line isn't it?" he asks, feeling Courfeyrac sit down next to him. "Interesting tactic, you coming down here," he snaps. "I expected Combeferre or Feuilly, not you, who's always glad to share a bottle of wine with me."

"Not when one of our best friends is…" he strays from his words, and Grantaire feels a rush of affection for his friend biting through his irritation. Courfeyrac is always genuine, always free with his emotions, and that rings true now, in light of their tragedy, in light of another one on the horizon.

"…dying," Courfeyrac finishes, courageous enough to complete his thought, courage Grantaire wishes he possessed.

"Possibly," Grantaire corrects, drinking from the bottle again. "Possibly dying. Leave me to this Courfeyrac, it's what I'm good for. Go back to Enjolras, to Combeferre, to Feuilly, to Marius, to Gavroche. I'm certain you're missed."

"Not without you," Courfeyrac persists, stubborn. "You're one of us too. You always have been."

"No I'm not!" Grantaire shouts, causing Courfeyrac to jump. "I'm not."

"You _are_," Courfeyrac says, unmoving, an uncharacteristic anger in his tone. "You are, and don't let me hear you say that again. Give me the bottle, Grantaire, and let's go back upstairs. Enjolras would want you there."

"I believe in _nothing_!" Grantaire says, voice rising higher now and he's not certain why; he's never yelled at Courfeyrac in their years of friendship. "All of you _believe_ in something, you believe in the cause even still, after everything we've just been through, are going through. I believe in…"

"You believe in the friendship between all of us," Courfeyrac says, cutting him off. "You always have. And most of all you _believe_ in Enjolras. Of those two things I'm absolutely certain."

"He's going to die," Grantaire continues, feeling Courfeyrac's fingers grasping the bottle and trying to tug it away from him. "He's going to die and then what's left to believe in? I might as well stop right now."

"So this is what you choose, then?" Courfeyrac answers, harsher than Grantaire's ever heard him. "You choose the bottle as a companion over your friends who love you? Over Enjolras, who is fighting for his life in the room above you? You would let him die without being by his side? I know that's not what you want."

"Let _go_, Courfeyrac," Grantaire insists. "I don't need to poison Enjolras' last moments with my drunkenness and my cynicism and my failure to complete the simplest task," he says, thinking of the Barriere du Maine. "He doesn't…"

"If he does die, he would want you there," Courfeyrac interrupts. "I know that's true. No matter the arguments you've ever had, you're his friend, R. And friendship means so much to Enjolras. You were willing to die with him right there at the barricade in front of the army general's gun. That kind of loyalty and love can't be bought."

_At the shrine of friendship never say die/Let the wine of friendship never run dry…_

Emotion rises in Grantaire's throat, emotion he absolutely cannot control, cannot stifle. Courfeyrac pulls harder on the bottle and Grantaire tightens his grip, but after a few moments the bottle goes flying, sailing through the air and smashing on the ground, droplets of the remaining red wine dripping from the broken green glass and onto the floor.

To Grantaire, it almost looks like blood, and for a moment he shuts his eyes against the images of the bloody barricade, of his bullet riddled friends.

Courfeyrac stares at him, eyes widening in shock.

And then Grantaire feels the emotion rip out of him, and before he knows it, he's crying.

He hasn't truly cried in years, not since he was a child, not like this. Suddenly Courfeyrac's arms are tight around him, and Grantaire doesn't fight, sobbing into his friend's shoulder. He's never been sure as to just why or how he loves Enjolras so fiercely; he only knows that he does.

_We are drawn to what we lack…_

"I should die instead," Grantaire says, his voice almost incoherent. "Not him, not Enjolras, not when he's got so much more to do. He could help so many people Courfeyrac, so many. And who can I help? I would trade places with him if I could."

"Shhh," Courfeyrac says, his own voice shaky. "Don't talk like that. And don't give up on Enjolras just yet; you know he's as stubborn and determined as they come."

Grantaire almost laughs because it's so true, but he's distracted by the sound of the door opening again, his sister's voice floating down the stairs.

"Lucien?" she asks, timid. "Are you down there?"

"We're down here Madame," Courfeyrac replies because Grantaire can't.

Delicate footsteps rush down the stairs, and Adrienne walks over to the pair of them, eyes resting on the broken bottle for a moment.

"Oh Lucien," she says as Courfeyrac lets go of Grantaire. "I'm so sorry about Enjolras, but he may yet be alright."

"Maybe," Grantaire says, his heart still feeling very much like it's breaking. "I can't imagine…I can't…" He stops, losing control of his voice altogether as Adrienne embraces him, Courfeyrac's hand resting on his shoulder.

A few moments pass and he finds his voice again, speaking about something he hasn't in years, something he's never told his friends.

"I had a brother," he says, directing his words at Courfeyrac, feeling Adrienne's hold on him tighten. "Alain. He was ten years my senior."

"You've never mentioned him," Courfeyrac says, looking first at Grantaire and then at Adrienne. "What…had?"

"He was killed," Adrienne says, taking her brother's hand. "He was set to go off to seminary, to study for the clergy just a few months from that night."

"He was out giving food to some of the local gamin like he did regularly," Grantaire said. "He was always fighting for the poor, going to town meetings and speaking up. But on his way home he was attacked by a gang, stabbed several times with a knife. I was ten, Adrienne was fifteen. Our parents never…it broke our family irreparably. I don't…I don't handle it well when I lose someone I love. His death and the circumstance of it shaped who I was, and not for the better."

Courfeyrac stares at him for a moment, the reason for the cynicism, for the bottle, coming together behind his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Grantaire," he says, smiling sadly at Adrienne and placing both hands on Grantaire's shoulders, facing him. "I'm so very sorry. But I promise you that this family, our family, won't break. We're hurt, we're bleeding, but we will stay together."

Grantaire nods, surprised at how willing he is to believe him. His words are almost poetic, and Grantaire thinks with a stab of sharp grief that Jehan would have been proud.

"What about Enjolras?" he asks, hands shaking.

"If you consent," Courfeyrac says. "We will go back upstairs, sit with him, and then will him well by the collective power of our own refusal to let him go. And then listen to him lecture us about sleeping chairs again."

Grantaire laughs despite himself. "He is rather resilient, isn't he?"

"Without a doubt," Courfeyrac answers, helping Grantaire up off the floor. "Without a doubt."

"Boys?" Monsieur Fauchelevent's voice asks, carrying down the stairs as they walk up. "I heard a crash, are you alright?"

"I'm sorry monsieur," Grantaire says sheepishly when they reach him. "I…broke into one of your bottles of wine and…dropped it."

He expects Fauchelevent to scold him, but the older man smiles almost indulgently instead, and Grantaire doesn't miss the very obvious melancholy.

"It's alright lad," he says. "You've been and are going through something terrible, and I won't miss a bottle of wine. But your friends and Enjolras' mother are looking for you, they're gathering in Enjolras' room. Cosette as well; she's far too concerned about Marius' condition to let him out of her sight. I think she's becoming rather attached to all of you."

"And we to her monsieur," Courfeyrac adds. "Thank you."

And so they go to Enjolras, Adrienne following close behind. They reach the room, finding it already full of their friends, and Grantaire returns to his chair beside Combeferre, who grasps his hand in solidarity.

_Live, Enjolras,_ Grantaire silently wills him. _For my sake. For all our sakes_.

He smiles slightly.

_For France's sake_.

* * *

While everyone is upstairs, Valjean sits down with Monsieur Gillenormand in the parlor, a question in his mind.

"Thank you for allowing Marius to stay," Gillenormand says. "I know you've got your hands full as it is, but he wanted so to be with his friends that I couldn't refuse him."

"Of course," Valjean replies, taking a sip of his coffee to give his hands something to do. "Your Marius loves my Cosette, so it's the least I could do. And these boys, they're suffering enough as it is."

Gillenormand nods. "How is Marius' friend, the other injured boy? Cosette told us he had an infection."

"We're doing everything we can," Valjean answers, grave. "He's very ill, but we're going to continue hoping for the best."

"I don't think I've thanked you enough," Gillenormand continues. "For saving my Marius' life. We've disagreed most furiously over his father, over his political actions, were estranged, but…" he swallows back a tide of emotion. "I'm old and I don't know that I fully understand his views, but I've also learned that I cannot let that get in the way of our relationship. Nearly losing him…if there's anything I can do to assist you, please tell me."

"Actually," Valjean responds, pleased the elderly man appears to be reading his mind. "I'm concerned at present, about the authorities. I saw a poster for Enjolras' arrest while I was out today, and though I don't know if they know the names of the other boys, I fear for all of their safety while in Paris. I know we cannot leave now; Enjolras and Marius are not in any condition for it, but I worry about staying here for too long."

"They may not be in danger forever," Gillenormand answers. "But I agree, they certainly will be for a time. I have a house in the countryside just outside Avignon. It's more than a sufficient size to house all of you and far enough away from Paris to be safe. It's the least I can do."

"I will pay you rent to cover expenses," Valjean says.

"No," Gillenormand says. "You saved Marius' life, that is enough. It is more than enough."

"I insist," Valjean says. "And thank you."

"We may yet be family should your Cosette and my Marius marry," Gillenormand replies. "But if you insist, they shall be minimal, these payments." He grumbles slightly as he says is, but it's all good-natured, Valjean knows.

They continue talking over the details, and Gillenormand promises to prepare the house and have it ready as soon as possible. After an hour or so Valjean sees him out, inviting him over the next day to come and see Marius at his leisure. He checks in on the boys, who have all fallen asleep surrounding Enjolras, Adrienne and Cosette included. Enjolras' mother is the only one awake, and she moves to speak to him, closing the door behind her.

"I haven't had the proper chance to thank you monsieur," she tells him, eyes red from shedding tears. "You have gone beyond the call of duty to help my son, to help all these boys. If it weren't for you, they would all have been lost."

"How is he?" Valjean asks. "I saw Doctor Figeuron out just after Marius' grandfather, and he said he'd return in the morning."

"He's much the same," she answers, voice fragile with anxiety. "He's…"

She can't finish her sentence and without quite knowing what he's doing, Valjean embraces her, full of such empathy he feels he might burst.

"You are welcome here as long as you need," he tells her. "But right now I recommend you get some rest, even if it's just sleeping in that chair."

"You come from God above monsieur," she says, and Valjean is physically struck by the similarity to Fantine's words of so long ago. "You should rest also; you look about to fall from exhaustion."

Valjean agrees, bidding her goodnight, eyes landing on each of the boys before focusing momentarily on his daughter, swearing that as soon as the right moment approach amongst these life-changing events, he will tell her the truth about her mother, about his past.

He goes to his room and sleeps, though not well, awoken just as the sun starts peeking through the windows to the sound of Cosette's voice.

"Papa!" she exclaims, coming over and shaking him lightly. "Papa, Enjolras' fever, it's breaking!"

A/N: I know, I know, I'm leaving you with a cliffhanger, but it's a good one, right?


	10. Of Broken Fevers and Broken Codes

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hi all! Thank you again for the wonderful feedback on the last chapter! You are all wonderful! Just a note here on Marius: while this fic is a mixture of the original novel, musical, and movie, Marius is largely based on his musical counterpart in how he reacts to learning about Valjean. Just wanted to make that clear before you actually started reading in case there was confusion. I do hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Chapter 10: Of Broken Fevers and Broken Codes

The first thing Enjolras feels is damp, damp like someone threw droplets of warm water all over him, his sheets, and his clothing.

He opens his eyes slowly, wondering for a moment, if he's dead.

The multiple pairs of eyes staring down at him and the footsteps rushing down the hall tell him he's not. One face in particular is very close to his own, blue eyes bright with nervous energy.

"You're alive!" Gavroche exclaims, sounding nearer to his normal self than Enjolras has heard in days.

"Should I…not be?" Enjolras questions, eyes flickering briefly to Combeferre, remembering brief flashes of a conversation, of the trembling voice of his usually undeniably steady best friend.

"_Am I dying?"_

"_You're not well. But we're doing everything we can Enjolras, I swear to you."_

"Well, things were touch and go there for a bit, my friend," Courfeyrac says, and Enjolras turns his head, warming a bit at seeing the familiar grin. "We really thought you were almost in the gra…"

"Courf!" Feuilly exclaims with an anxious yet amused shake of his head. "Tact, please."

"You're worse than me," Grantaire mumbles, and Enjolras looks up, noting that he smells slightly of wine-which is nothing new-but his eyes are also reddened from what looks like tears.

Just how bad off had he been? He remembers hallucinating, although vaguely, remember snatches of moments.

"I don't know, R," someone's voice says, teasing, but still fond. "I'd sooner take a class in tact from you than Courfeyrac."

"The beautiful women of France don't seem to have any problem with this 'lack of tact' you mention, Marius," Courfeyrac adds, but he's still smiling.

When on _earth_ did Marius get here?

Enjolras turns so fast it makes his head spin.

Literally. Or at least if feels like it.

"Easy Enjolras, easy," Combeferre says, easing him back down and arranging the pillows so he can sit up a bit more.

"When…Marius, when did you get here?" Enjolras asks, baffled, eyes running over his injured friend. "How?"

"Cosette came and told me you were ill," Marius answers. "And I simply had to come. We were just very careful about transporting me. Besides, I look a sight better than you do. Going to tell me I'm impulsive?"

"Not this time," Enjolras replies lightly. "Because I know I would have done the same in that circumstance. I would chide you for mocking the sick, but…"

"You're too sick?" Marius finishes, smirking.

Enjolras smiles slightly, eyes flickering over Monsieur Fauchelevent, Cosette, and Grantaire's sister Adrienne who is also somehow miraculously here, before falling on his mother, who sits so close to his bedside that the arm of her chair touches the edge.

"How ever did you get here?" he asks, reaching over for her hand when he sees it shaking violently. He can only imagine her worry over him. He's been close to her, always, and knows the fighting she puts up with from his father to make trips to Paris so she can see him.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent found Adrienne and I while we were walking the streets looking…" she answers, cutting off in mid-sentence, giving him the very urgent sense that she's leaving something out, but he doesn't yet have the energy to press the matter. "And brought us here to all of you."

"You continue to be our savior monsieur," Enjolras says, turning his attention to Fauchelevent. "You and Cosette both."

"It is nothing," Fauchelevent says humbly, a small smile curving at his lips.

"It is everything," Enjolras protests. "You saved all our lives, brought my mother here, brought Adrienne here, opened your home to us."

"I'm pleased to help you," Fauchelevent answers, fully smiling now, and an inherent feeling of safety overcomes Enjolras, a feeling that surprises him and yet does not all at once. And yet there's anxiety in Fauchelvent's eyes…

"I sense there's something you're not telling me," Enjolras says bluntly, already feeling weary.

The room falls silent, the relieved grins fading from faces as quickly as they'd come upon Enjolras' awakening.

"What?" he asks, throat tightening.

It's his mother who answers.

"The police," she says, squeezing the hand that grasps hers. "They've already posted fliers of your face around Paris. They've started looking for you. For anyone who might be with you."

He knew this was coming.

He knew it was coming and yet the knot that has taken residence in his stomach twists violently for the sake of these surviving friends, these friends who have come so far that he cannot allow anything to happen to them now.

They'd hadn't sought death, but they'd been willing to accept it if necessary, if inevitable, for this cause that meant so much to all of them.

But now that they've survived…

"If it is necessary for me to turn…"

"Rene," his mother says, touching his face and forcing him to look at her. "Do not even think of finishing that statement."

"I second that," Combeferre adds, stern.

"As if you think we'd let you out," Grantaire says, almost laughing. "I haven't had nearly as much wine as usual, and I can block that door all day long. Bahorel taught me a few tricks."

Grantaire stops abruptly, a moment of silence reigning in memory of their so recently departed friend, the mere mention of his name sending a slice of pain through Enjolras' chest, still so fresh, so new, the idea that their friends won't simply burst into the room. Eventually the sharpness will reduce to an ache, but Enjolras knows it will never completely cease hurting them all, these losses.

"You are all stubborn," he mumbles.

"We could say the same about you," Feuilly says with a good-natured smile. "Perhaps that's where we learned."

Enjolras can't help but smile in return.

"Marius' grandfather has graciously offered us use of his home outside Avignon," Fauchelevent says, looking around at all of them. "But until that home is prepared, I am considering, if necessary and when possible, a move to my second home in the Rue Plumet, as it is larger. For now however, Cosette and I are going to talk to Toussaint about preparing breakfast."

Then without giving any of them a chance to argue or to lament that his kindness was too much, he sweeps from the room, Cosette giving Marius a soft kiss on the forehead before following him. Adrienne exits in much the same manner, kissing Grantaire's cheek and following Cosette.

Enjolras watches the two women go, thinking that they are just as brave as any men he's known. He feels his mother's warm hand on his cheek, his attention coming back to her.

"The doctor is coming back later to check on you," she says, using nearly the same tone she had when he'd acquired influenza as a child and didn't want to stay in bed. "But in the meantime you listen to Combeferre, alright? I can't lose you now, not after you've already been saved."

He nods, and she presses a kiss to the top of his head, a rush of deep, unadulterated affection rushing through him, so he pulls her in as best he can with his weak body and injured arm, embracing her.

"I love you," he whispers into her hair. "And I'm sorry."

It's not an apology for who he is or what he's done, it's an apology for the hurts he knows it's caused her, because he knows it isn't easy for a mother to watch her child dive headfirst into a cause that might very well kill him, but his mother is unceasingly courageous.

"I love you too," she answers, returning the embrace. "And don't be sorry, don't ever be sorry, just…listen to your friends. And follow all directions given to you about getting well." She pulls back, running a hand down his cheek. "I'll leave you boys alone for a bit, shall I? Give you some time to talk."

And with that she exits with all the grace they boys have always seen in Enjolras, leaving the seven revolutionaries and Gavroche alone.

There is a moment of quiet, and Enjolras looks over at Combeferre, noting that he looks ready to burst with something.

"Go ahead Combeferre," he says. "I know you've had your lecture about my recovery prepared for hours."

Everyone laughs at that, and just for a moment, Enjolras feels some of the tension leave him.

"You are on complete bed-rest for two weeks, the only exception being this possible move to the Rue Plumet," Combeferre begins. "After that you will still need a great deal of rest, as none of us are willing to risk you coming down with another infection, so we will take it slowly. You will have that sling on your arm for several weeks, and we will need to find a cane for you somewhere, as that leg will make it harder to walk for a while. You will have to take some medications for a period. It will just take time, Enjolras, and I know that isn't what you want to hear…"

Combeferre stumbles over his words in a way that is most unlike him, and Enjolras has another flash of memory from the previous night, remembers seeing tears leak from Combeferre's eyes.

"It's alright Combeferre," Enjolras says sincerely. "I will do whatever you say, I promise. We've all been through something hellish, and my being ill has only made it worse."

Combeferre looks a smidge stunned, but grasps Enjolras' arm briefly in response.

"We almost lost you, Enjolras," Grantaire says, voice still quiet, and Enjolras sees Combeferre meet Courfeyrac's eye for the briefest moment. It's clear something happened with Grantaire last night, but he suspects they'll tell him in time. "We've lost so much…we can't lose you, too."

It's one of Grantaire's rare and unmasked moments of pure emotion, and on impulse Enjolras reaches out and presses his hand, offering him a smile. Grantaire stares for a moment before returning the gesture.

"And if you even think of trying to turn yourself in," he continues, recovering his normal expression. "Don't." From his place beside Grantaire, Gavroche nods seriously.

Courfeyrac seems to sense Enjolras' argument coming before it does.

"I see that look," Courfeyrac says, a glint of concern in his green eyes. "We are in this together. Always together. They take one of us, they take all of us. Now, didn't we have something to tell Marius?"

Marius sits up a bit straighter, looking nervous.

"Something to tell me?" he asks, glancing at Courfeyrac.

"Something Grantaire overheard while Monsieur Fauchelevent helped us escape," Courfeyrac says. "I don't know that you remember, but he took us through the sewers."

"I have one very vague memory," Marius says. "But the only reason I gathered we'd been in the sewers was from the amount of filth on my person when we arrived at my grandfather's home. What happened?"

"We all waited while Monsieur Fauchelevent went outside to look, still carrying you," Grantaire says. "And the inspector who infiltrated the barricade…"

"Javert," Gavroche adds, cutting in.

"Javert, yes," Grantaire says. "He confronted Fauchelevent, called him Valjean, 24601…"

"A…prisoner number?" Marius asks, bewildered.

"That's what we gathered," Feuilly says. "But from what Grantaire could pick up, there's some kind of history between Monsieur Fauchelevent and Inspector Javert, as if Fauchelevent escaped under Javert's watch."

"It didn't sound like the first time he'd let Fauchelevent escape," Grantaire replies.

"But he let him go with me?" Marius asks. "That…"

"Doesn't make sense," Combeferre interjects. "But we're not going to understand unless we speak with him."

Enjolras keeps his eyes trained on Marius, who looks more than a little shocked, but there's a sort of resolve building in his expression.

"Marius?" he asks. "What are you thinking?"

"I'd like to know the truth," Marius says honestly. "But truthfully? I don't care what he was in the past, because first of all, he's clearly been wonderful father to Cosette, and second of all, he's risked life and limb to save me, to save all of us. Whatever he might have done in the past, it just doesn't matter."

"That was our line of thinking," Enjolras answers. "But we'd like him to know that he doesn't have to hide who he is from us."

"But we're also not sure he wants to talk about it," Grantaire says. "Do you think Cosette knows the truth?"

"I'm not sure," Marius says. "I do know she adores her father. But I'd rather not put her in the middle of it; speaking with him directly seems best."

"I agree," Courfeyrac says. "I suppose it's only a matter of timing. Right this moment doesn't seem…right."

"No, it doesn't," Enjolras agrees.

"I think we've rather been through enough in the past few days," Combeferre says. "Let us collect our thoughts and ourselves and then wait for the right moment. It's not about accosting him; it's about letting him know that we don't care who he's been, and showing him how grateful we are for everything's he's done."

"Well said," Enjolras says, nodding.

Silence falls again, and Enjolras feels Combeferre's eyes on him.

"Speaking of Monsieur Fauchelevent," he says. "He acquired some clothing for us, and I think it best to get you out of those sweat-soaked things before Doctor Figeuron arrives."

Enjolras consents, and allows Grantaire and Feuilly to help him to a chair while the damp sheets are changed, grateful to feel the warmth of their skin, the beating of their pulses when they touch him.

They're alive, and that is Enjolras' light in what feels like an overwhelming dark.

* * *

Javert's shift is nearly over when he's called into Prefect Gerard's office.

He knows what this is about.

He knew this would happen, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself.

So despite the fact that he rather feels as if he might be ill, he rises from his immaculate desk, straightens his coat, and walks to the Prefect's office, his expression a mask of professionalism.

"Javert," Gerard says, gesturing to the seat in front of him. "Do have a seat. And close the door, if you would."

Javert does as asked and then sits down, folding his hands neatly on his lap and looking to his superior.

"You wished to speak with me, monsieur?"

"Yes, and most urgently," he replies, leaning back in his chair. "As you know, nearly all of the insurgents at the various barricades around the city were killed; I'm sure some managed to escape, but that is the nature of these things. However, as far as we know all of the known leaders were killed in the battles. All but one. The leader of the last barricade to fall. You infiltrated that barricade, did you not?"

"I did monsieur." Gerard doesn't ask him how he escaped, and Javert is glad of it, because it would only mean being forced to lie, would only mean directly keeping the information from his superior that he had allowed a convict to go free WITH an insurgent.

"And you were there for the aftermath and discovered that the leader of that particular barricade was missing?"

"Yes monsieur. Enjolras. We thought some others might be missing but…"

"Some of his lieutenants, I'm certain," Gerard interrupts. "But it is Enjolras himself the king and those closest to him are interested in; if we crush the leaders, those who follow them will be far too frightened to continue. He is to be made a public example of, when he's found, and I'd like you to lead the investigation into his whereabouts."

Someone punched him the stomach without him noticing, Javert thinks. Surely, surely that happened, otherwise why does it feel rather difficult to breathe?

_Just because Valjean escaped with the Pontmercy boy it does NOT mean that he escaped with Enjolras and his remaining lieutenants._

_It might._

_It's something Valjean would do, saving those schoolboys._

_You know where he lives,_ he tells himself. _You could easily go there._

Except that would mean seeing Valjean, the convict who gave him back his life, would mean seeing his daughter, who subsequently saved him from throwing himself into the river.

_You could lead the investigation astray, lead them elsewhere._

Except that would be, once again, going against his code.

And now going against his job, against his orders.

"Javert?" Gerard asks, one eyebrow raised. "Do you consent?"

"If you think I'm the best man for the job, monsieur," Javert answers.

"I do," Gerard says. "I do." He softens ever so slightly. "It's unfortunate, the deaths of all those young men, and although it seems a shame to shed more, high treason is not something we let go, and Enjolras was already a problem as far as riling up the citizens of Paris; he will play for his crimes against the state, will pay for all their crimes, and he will stand before the public firing squad as an example to other potential revolutionaries. It is the only way for Louis-Phillipe to establish that he is a strong monarch and will not stand for further insurrection."

"Enjolras is well known and liked around the city for his speeches," Javert says, and he hardly sounds like himself. "And the people are already rioting in the streets over the bloodshed of the young students, of the workers who were also involved, in such difficult economic times."

Gerard states at him, utterly perplexed.

"I never thought you might be sympathetic to their cause, Javert," he says. "And of course now the people are angry, but the people are easily swayed; they did not rise to the cause as the students expected them to. Their rising now is of little consequence."

Javert wants to tell him that he wasn't there, that he didn't hear the screams of sobbing mothers and sisters, didn't see the glassy-eyed faces of boys who had been alive with idealism mere hours ago. He's handed out justice without question since his first day on the force, but something about those damned schoolboys…

But they broke the _law_, and for that there is no clemency.

_But then if that's true, why is Valjean still free?_

_I am the law and law is not mocked…_

"I'm not sympathetic to the cause," Javert replies, voice crisp and clear again. "I shall start my preliminary investigation and then report to you."

"Good man," Gerard says, shaking his hand.

With that, Javert exits the office, sticking his hands in his pockets because he's certain they're trembling.

Arresting this insurgent could be his chance at redemption for his failure to arrest Valjean.

But then, if Enjolras is with Valjean, then arresting him means seeing Valjean, means the temptation to arrest him too, after so long.

But he knows he can't arrest Valjean, knows in the deepest recesses of his mind that it would be _wrong_.

Here he is again, at the precipice. His conscience or his duty?

_I will cover all other possibilities first, he tells himself. And then and only then will I go looking for Enjolras at Valjean's home_.

For the time being, he contents himself with that thought.


	11. Truths and Conversations

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello wonderful readers! Thank you again to all of you for continuing to read this story and giving me your feedback! I'm hoping you'll like this chapter as I'm a bit unsure how it turned out. But do enjoy, and please send me your thoughts!

Chapter 11: Truths and Conversations

Valjean folds his hands.

Then unfolds them.

Then folds them again.

He sits with Cosette on their favorite bench in the Luxembourg Gardens, a bag of petits fours from her favorite bakery open between them; they've been her favorite since childhood, and he thought having something to hold, something to chew, might make this easier.

He has no idea if he's doing the right thing, but knows now that he cannot keep his secrets from her, can no longer hide, not with the threat of the law on his back and chasing after Enjolras, not after Cosette accidentally saved Javert from throwing himself into the Seine, not with the potential that the boys suspect something…and certainly not with a possible proposal from Marius on the horizon.

It's been two days since Enjolras' fever broke, and the infection continues healing, though he's still very, very weak and the other boys have hardly left his bedside, including Marius, who's still very much on the mend himself. His usually near-empty house is full to bursting and despite the tension, despite the grief, it fills him with a sense of purpose; Cosette graciously offered to share her room with Madame Enjolras and Adrienne, Combeferre shares with Feuilly, Grantaire with Courfeyrac and Gavroche, and then Marius and Enjolras are in their own rooms. His house at Rue Plumet at least, has one more bedroom and a larger parlor, and if possible he's thinking of moving their location.

For the first time in memory, he jumps at the feeling of Cosette's hand on his shoulder.

"Papa?" she questions, her voice warm with concern, concern he fears she won't feel in just a few moments. "Are you alright? You don't seem yourself."

He hesitates.

"I'm alright," he replies, turning and taking both of her small hands in his, blood pulsing in his ears. "But I…I did bring you here to speak about something in particular."

"I thought as much," she answers, a smile tweaking her lips. "What with everything we have going on, I didn't think you simply fancied a walk. Though you've done stranger things." Her tone is teasing, but fond.

Memories of her falling asleep with her head in his lap on the carriage ride to Paris from Montfermeil wash over him, and he remembers.

"_Will you be like a papa to me?"_

"_Yes Cosette, this is true. I'll be father and mother to you."_

_How was I to know at last, that happiness can come so fast. Something, suddenly, has begun…_

"Papa?" she asks again, grasping his hands tighter.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says, feeling tears gathering at the edges of his eyes and holding them back. "I…I came here to tell you the truth about me. About your mother. About you."

Cosette's eyes widen, a tentative eagerness filling her eyes, but she doesn't let go of his hands.

"You may not think of me in the same fashion," he tells her. "And for that, I wouldn't blame you."

"How on earth can you know that?" she asks gently, but firmly. "You have been my father and my family, and that won't change. I love you."

"I…" Valjean feels emotions swelling and expanding in his throat. He'd told himself he wouldn't do this, told himself he would remain strong for Cosette.

"It's okay Papa," Cosette says, warmth spreading through him as she speaks.

She knows how much he loves her.

"I came from a poor family," he begins, finally looking up to meet her eyes. "And my sister and I were left as orphans. Eventually my sister married and had seven children but was soon left a widow; I did my best to provide for her, did my best to put food in the mouths of my nieces and nephews, but much like now, life wasn't kind to people of our station. I was desperate, and I stole bread from the local baker. But someone heard the shattering of the glass, and I was arrested, given five years for my crime…"

"Five years!" she exclaims, indignant at the injustice. "That's…"

He raises a hand, a silent gesture to allow him to continue or he simply won't have the power. It's not the crime of stealing bread to feed his family that he's ashamed of, it's of who he became while he was in Toulon, of the hate he allowed to spread through his soul and take him over.

"I was angry," he continues. "And so I tried to escape multiple times and was given fourteen years more in the galleys for a total of nineteen until I was released on parole."

He looks up again and sees the tears forming in her eyes; there's no hate there yet, no disgust, but then, she doesn't know the worst of his crimes.

"When I was released I felt as if the world owed me something. I was hateful, Cosette, I was furious, and after many weeks of searching for work and being refused, a kindly bishop offered me his guest room for the night, gave me food, warmth, the first real bed I'd slept in for nineteen years." He stops, averting his eyes from her again. "In the middle of the night I awoke, and I…I stole the bishop's best silver."

There's a small, surprised intake of breath from Cosette, but she still doesn't let go of his hands. In fact, she only holds them tighter. She stays silent, knowing he needs to continue.

"The town police caught me and returned me to Bishop Myriel's home," he says, the memory fresh as ever in his mind's eye. "But instead of taking back his silver and sending me back to the galleys, the bishop…" he stops for moment, the man's face, the face that radiated kindness, all he can think of. "He told them he'd given the silver to me, reprimanded me for leaving the best behind, and they released me. He bid me to become an honest man."

_But remember this, my brother. See in this some higher plan. You must use this precious silver to become an honest man. By the witness of the martyrs, by the passion and the blood, God has raised you out of darkness, I have bought your soul, for God…_

"The candlesticks," Cosette whispers. "Those are from the bishop."

"Yes, Valjean says, squeezing her hands. "Yes. I knew I couldn't change my life while still on parole, there wasn't a chance the world would allow that. So I broke it, broke it and changed my name. And that's how I found myself in Montreuil sur Mer. It's how I met your mother. And how Inspector Javert found me again; he'd been one of the guards at Toulon."

Before Valjean even knows what's happening Cosette lets go of his hand and throws her arms around him, embracing him with all her might. He feels her tears dripping on his shirt, his heart contracting with shame.

"I'm so sorry to disappoint you," he says quietly, returning her embrace. "I'm so sorry."

"Disappoint me?" she asks, pulling back and looking directly in his eyes. "Papa, no. You are the most generous, thoughtful, selfless person I could have ever known. And this…you took injustices that were done to you, took your horrible plot in life and turned it into something good. How could I ever _hate_ you for that?"

"You…you aren't angry with me?" he asks, unable to hide his shock.

"Only that you didn't tell me before, that you didn't trust me with this," she answers honestly. "Only that you thought I _would_ hate you."

"I'm sorry," he says again, relief flooding through him so forcefully it's painful. Cosette doesn't despise him, doesn't want him instantly out of her life, he hasn't broken her heart…

"I only feared I would break your heart," he tells her.

"I know," she says, touching his cheek. "Inspector Javert, is he…is he the police officer I found by the bridge?"

"Yes," Valjean answers. "He's been on my trail since the day I broke parole, and when I was at the barricade he was there, and I freed him. I suspect that's what led him to the bridge. But I don't know what he'll do, now."

Cosette nods, apprehension in her eyes.

"You said…you said you would tell me about my mother?"

Valjean nods, sharp melancholy striking his heart when he thinks of Fantine, mixing with joy when he looks at Cosette and knowing how proud Fantine would be if she could see her daughter now.

Cosette is the best of his life.

"Fantine was one of the most selfless souls I've ever come across," he says, and now he knows he will be the strong one for Cosette, because it won't be an easy story for her to hear. "But the world…it was cruel to her."

"She left me," Cosette blurts out suddenly, a marked hurt in her voice. "She…why would she leave me with those people, with the Thenardiers?"

"She didn't know the sort of people they were," Valjean answers carefully. "If she had, she never would have left you there. And it was only meant to be temporary. I don't know the circumstance of why your father wasn't present, but he wasn't, and that left your mother completely alone. She hoped, I believe, to make enough money so she could bring you to live with her in better conditions than she herself lived in. She loved you, Cosette, more than I coherently express here in mere words."

Cosette nods again. "What…what happened to her?" She sounds once more like the timid child he'd first met, rather than the hopeful, confident young woman he now knows so well.

Valjean closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply and steeling himself.

"I was mayor of and owner of the women's factory she worked in," he begins. "I tried my best to provide living wages for my workers, but there was an incident one day, a disagreement between some of the women and your mother, and I asked my foreman to handle it. I left, and he fired her without my knowledge, without my knowing her circumstance, and I suspect now, that he was punishing her for some imagined slight. I found her again one night, amongst…"

He pauses, forcing the words forth. "Amongst the prostitutes, because she had no other choice. A man had attacked her, and Javert got involved in the situation. But I refused to let them take her to prison once she told me the story about what happened, about the factory, about you. She tried everything to send money to the Thenardiers to keep you, tried to earn money so she could have you with her, and she was willingly to do _anything_. She sold her hair, her teeth… She loved you Cosette, more than her own life. And I promised her I would take care of you, would make you happy. It's all she ever wanted."

Cosette starts crying again, harder this time, and Valjean pulls her to him, rubbing a comforting hand up and down her back; her tears, he suspects, are not out of anger at her mother, but out of empathy, out of the immense loss she feels at never having really known her, at hearing about the sacrifices she made.

"I love her," Cosette says quietly. "I've always loved her. I just didn't understand."

"I know," Valjean says. "I know."

They remain like that for several minutes, but there's so much left to say and they're so spent that they cannot articulate it just yet.

"Are we going to tell Marius these things?" she asks, pulling back. "Or the other boys?"

"Marius will need to know, in time, the truth about me," he replies. "And something tells me that the other boys already know something isn't quite right; when I rescued them from the barricade I ran into Javert and he let me go with your Marius. I don't know for certain, but I think Grantaire might have overheard our conversation, for lack of a better term. But if you agree, I shall need time to figure out how to approach that. And it is up to you if you wish to share the story of your mother. That I think, will take some time for you to process."

She hugs him again in silent agreement, and after a few moments they rise to leave. She links her arm through his and stays close on the walk home, caught up in her thoughts and he in his. When they're nearly there they stop to let a carriage pass, and Valjean notices yet another poster of Enjolras' face hanging nearby, two police officers standing in front. He can just makes out their voices, and he presses Cosette's arm, a silent request to stop walking.

"No sign of him yet, then?" the first officer asks.

"No," the second replies. "And we're still cleaning up the mess from all the barricades and people are furious at the bloodshed. Almost all the higher ups are out looking for any surviving leaders, but they think they're all dead, except for this one. He escaped, apparently, along with some others," he says, jabbing his thumb at the poster. "There were too many rebels to have proof to charge most of the remaining survivors, so they're focusing on finding the leaders, the ones who were already visibly vocal and causing trouble, whose names they know."

"I heard Inspector Javert's been put in charge of finding Enjolras," the other answers. "And with his perseverance…"

"That boy will almost certainly get caught," the second finishes. "I almost pity him."

Their voices fade and instead Valjean only hears the pounding of his own heart. Cosette looks at him, eyes widening.

"We have to move to the house in Rue Plumet," he says. "We have to move tonight. "

* * *

For once, it's quiet when Enjolras wakes. There's no murmur of conversation like there usually is, when every last one of his friends sits by his bedside.

"Well hello there O Sleeping One," Courfeyrac says, hand going almost unconsciously to Enjolras' arm as he helps him sit up.

"It's disturbingly quiet in here," Enjolras remarks. "I thought you were sitting with Marius?"

"I was," Courfeyrac says. "But you've been asleep for about three hours, and I wanted to come sit with you for a bit. Besides, I made Marius go to sleep, because from what his grandfather told me, he hardly slept while he was at home because he was too concerned about us, and really, we don't need another scare around here, you frightened us enough. And, besides it prevents him from fretting over where M. Fauchelevent and Cosette have gotten to."

"They're not here?" Enjolras asks, curious.

"Went out for a bit," Courfeyrac answers. "I think Marius is just interested to know the truth about M. Fauchelevent. We're all grateful to him of course, and whatever he's done he's redeemed himself, but knowing the truth will make it easier on everyone, I should think."

Enjolras nods. "I feel an inherent sense of trust toward him, but I'm still interested in knowing his motivations, myself. I feel we cannot be too careful in our circumstances," he answers, feeling an odd sort of kinship with the older man, mixed with the tiniest bit of trepidation. Enjolras doesn't know what sort of crime Fauchelevent committed, but the man does know what it's like to be a fugitive, and that's something to which Enjolras will have to adjust. "Where is everyone else?"

"Feuilly is keeping Gavroche occupied for a bit," Courfeyrac answers. "Grantaire is downstairs talking with Adrienne, your mother is down in the kitchen with Toussaint, who asked if there's a meal you might actually eat the entirety of…"

"I'm ill!" Enjolras exclaims in response to his friend's teasing. "Of course I'm not going to eat well."

"You hardly make time to eat in general," Courfeyrac argues good-naturedly. "But I suspect your mother will find a way to make you, she's as stubborn as you are."

"Where's Combeferre?" Enjolras asks.

"Ah, I sent him to bed," Courfeyrac says, rolling his eyes.

"You did?"

"Dragged him after forcing a glass of wine down his throat is more what I did," Courfeyrac replies. "Every other time I've tried he's snuck back in here to sit with you and obsessively check your fever, which has totaled about eight hours of sleep in an actual bed for the past two or three days. I told him not come back in here until he's slept for a solid three hours unless there's an emergency."

Enjolras shakes his head, smiling slightly. That's just like Combeferre, running himself ragged out of concern for someone else, out of concern for him. There are many instances in his memory of Combeferre putting food under his nose while he worked furiously on a pamphlet in the Musain and forgot to eat, and in turn he's forced Combeferre to put down his reading and go home to sleep.

"He probably won't sleep the full three hours," Enjolras says, knowing his friend.

"No," Courfeyrac admits. "But if he knows what's good for him he'll sleep at least two." He's quiet for a moment before speaking up again, looking serious, his familiar grin missing. "I need to speak to you about something."

"Of course," Enjolras says. "Is something wrong?"

He regrets his words almost instantly because what _isn't_ wrong at the moment, but Courfeyrac knows what he means. The laughter of all their fellows in the café rings in his head, and he distinctly feels as if four parts of him are missing, parts that are shaped like Prouvaire, Bahorel, Bossuet, and Joly.

_Bahorel's laughter, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, and Bossuet's sarcasm…_

"I spent some time with Grantaire when the doctor thought you might be lost," Courfeyrac says, drawing Enjolras back into the moment. "And he was distraught, Enjolras, I've never seen him that way before; just sobbing on my shoulder, all defenses down, all sarcasm gone. And even now that you've pulled through, he's still anxious. I was hoping maybe you could speak with him, reassure him."

"I've hardly seen him with any drink at all over the past few days," Enjolras says in reply. "Except for when M. Fauchelevent allows all of you to eat your meals up here with me."

"I found him drinking in the wine cellar the night we thought you might die," Courfeyrac answers. "But the only alcohol he's touched since is the wine at meals. I think he wants to make sure he's sober enough to do anything you should need, in case anything should happen. I know it might not make sense to you, but he worships the ground you walk on Enjolras."

Enjolras remembers awakening from his fever dream, remembers Grantaire calming him down, remembers Grantaire practically shielding him when the army general's carbine was pointed directly over his heart, remembers Grantaire's words when his fever broke two days ago.

_We almost lost you, Enjolras. We've lost too much…we can't lose you too._

"I think I'm beginning to fully realize that," Enjolras says, looking up at Courfeyrac. "And I did always care about him, did consider him my friend even when he frustrated me. I wouldn't have allowed him in our most secret meetings, wouldn't have given him chance after chance if I didn't. I just…I don't understand him. I just want him to believe in something Courfeyrac, because I know he's capable of it, and I've seen sparks of that ever since the barricade fell."

"He believes in our friendship, and most of all he believes in you," Courfeyrac says, a soft smile returning to his lips. "And that's something my friend. It's a start."

"I suppose it is," Enjolras agrees. "But yes, I will speak to him. Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome," Courfeyrac replies. "Also you should know…"

But whatever Courfeyrac was about to say is cut off by a series of noises; they hear the front door open hastily downstairs, hear footsteps walking swiftly down the hall, hear one of the guest room doors open, hear muffled words they can't quite make out, and then quite suddenly Combeferre is in the doorway.

"Courfeyrac sent you to sleep," Enjolras says, a reprimand in his tone. "You need sleep too, Combeferre, not just me…"

But Combeferre uncharacteristically cuts him off, albeit gently, and there's anxiety in his best friend's eyes that unnerves Enjolras.

"There's no time right now," he tells them. "M. Fauchelevent's just told me that we have to move to his house in the Rue Plumet tonight, as soon as darkness falls. Inspector Javert's been put on our case."

Enjolras' eyes widen slightly.

_Spy, we are judges, not assassins…_

The man he'd thought killed at the barricade.

_The people will decide your fate Inspector Javert!_

The man who'd accosted M. Fauchelevent outside the sewers after Fauchelevent had obviously given him back his life.

_The law is inside out the world is upside down…_

The man who'd then let Fauchelevent go free with Marius.

And the man who knows what every last one of them looks like.


	12. Under Cover of Night

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello readers! Wow, thank you AGAIN for all of your wonderful feedback and loyalty to this story, it's just wonderful! I do hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 12: Under Cover of Night

The house is whirlwind of activity, and yet all Enjolras can do is wait.

Wait.

Wait.

_Wait_.

"Is there anything I can _do_?" Enjolras asks Feuilly, who has clearly been given an order by Combeferre, his mother, and Monsieur Fauchelevent to guard him.

"I'm afraid not my friend," Feuilly answers with a good-natured smile. "It's a risk moving you as is, but we don't have a choice now, not with Inspector Javert on the case."

"Do you think Javert knows this is where Fauchelevent lives?" Enjolras asks.

"Honestly I'm not sure," Feuilly replies. "But I do wonder if that's the case, what with this sudden need to move houses. As much as I like M. Fauchelevent, I'll feel better when we know the truth about all of this. I'll rest easier. Or as easy as any of us can rest right now."

Enjolras nods, thoughts swirling around in his mind. He's used to leading, to acting, to _doing_, and being physically incapable frustrates him. He doesn't want to worry his friends any further, however, and so remains silent. The trouble is, Feuilly is incredibly perceptive.

"I know you dislike being idle while others act," Feuilly tells him. "But for now you're going to have to let the rest of us take the lead. That, or Combeferre's heart is going to stop beating from his worrying."

"You're right," Enjolras agrees. "And I am trying. And it's not that I don't trust you, I trust _all_ of you, I just…"

"Enjolras," Feuilly says, resting a hand on his arm and stopping his most uncharacteristic ramble of words. "We know you trust us. We know you love us and we know you want to protect us. But you're going to have to let us protect you in this instance, alright?"

"Yes," Enjolras says, offering Feuilly a melancholy smile. "I admit, I rather don't feel like myself."

"None of us do," Feuilly says, shaking his head. "I don't know how we could. We will find ourselves again, but not just yet."

_And we might find ourselves changed,_ are the words he doesn't speak aloud. _Changed in the wake of these losses._

There are ghosts in Feuilly's eyes, ghosts of his long-deceased parents, parents who died when he was just a bit younger than Gavroche, leaving him with no family, no money, and no home. The Amis have been his family since he came into their fold, and Enjolras knows how much that means to his friend. Anger burns in the pit of Enjolras' stomach at the thought of the injustices Feuilly has suffered; Feuilly, who taught himself so much and yet never had the chance to go to university when so many luckier youths wasted their education away without appreciating it, without acknowledging its merit.

"Your wisdom never ceases to astound me," Enjolras says sincerely. "Truly."

"The world has taught me a few things," Feuilly says humbly.

Footsteps sound in the hallway and Combeferre appears, looking slightly frazzled but still in control, Courfeyrac and Grantaire behind him.

"Alright," Combeferre says. "M. Gillenormand loaned us two of his carriages, so here is the plan M. Fauchelevent set forth. We will stagger the carriages; the first one will contain M. Fauchelevent, Marius, myself, and you, Enjolras…"

"Me!" Enjolras exclaims. "No, I should not go first…"

"Enjolras," Combeferre says, and there is no room for argument in his tone. "It is your face on those posters, and so therefore you need to leave first. That, and we need to move you as quickly as possible to avoid aggravating your injuries. I will phrase it like this if it makes you more amenable; if Inspector Javert comes while you are still here, it will likely only mean bad things for all of us."

Combeferre raises one eyebrow, and after meeting his eye for a moment and sensing the barely visible glint of desperation, Enjolras concedes.

"Alright," he replies. "Alright."

"The second carriage will contain Cosette, Grantaire, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and Gavroche, and the third Adrienne, Toussaint, and Madame Enjolras. We'll stagger the arrivals to the Rue Plumet about ten minutes apart."

"It's less suspicious that way, I imagine," Enjolras says.

"Exactly," Combeferre says. "But now there's the matter of getting you downstairs with your leg in this state. M. Fauchelevent has Marius settled in the carriage, but he also has use of both legs."

"I think I can manage with some assistance," Enjolras says, even if the idea of putting weight on his leg makes him blanch inwardly.

"We'll try it," Combeferre says, clearly skeptical. "Courfeyrac, Grantaire, you're the strongest amongst us, I think. Courfeyrac, you put your arm around Enjolras' waist on the side with his bad shoulder, and Grantaire, you put his good arm around your shoulder and help him keep the weight off his injured leg."

They oblige, and although it pains him to even move, this strategy works.

Until they reach the stairs.

There's no possibility the stairs are wide enough for all three of them to make their way down three astride.

"Well," Grantaire says matter of factly. "Looks like I'll have to carry you again."

"I'm sure I can…"

"Put weight on that leg," Grantaire says, challenging him.

Enjolras does, and it sends stabbing pains up the entire length of his leg.

"I thought not," Grantaire says, and Enjolras is once again surprised at his determination, determination that seems to have been brought forth by this tragedy they've found themselves in, by the near loss of Enjolras himself.

He lifts Enjolras carefully into his arms, and it's done with minimal pain.

"Not as heavy as the marble statues you so often compare me to?" Enjolras asks wryly.

"Not quite," Grantaire quips, chuckling.

Soon they are down the stairs and out the door, M. Fauchelevent coming to greet them at the first carriage.

"Alright," he says, and there's an air of forced calm about him. "Combeferre, you climb in first and then you can help us bring Enjolras in."

Combeferre does as asked, and Enjolras eyes Marius lying across the second seat, anxiety glistening in his eyes. With Courfeyrac's help, Grantaire and Combeferre soon have Enjolras laid out in a similar fashion, his head resting on Combeferre's legs for lack of room.

"Please be careful," Enjolras says to his remaining friends.

"I will take care of them Rene," Madame Enjolras says from the right. "And you do as Combeferre and M. Fauchelevent ask of you. We will see you soon."

And with that the carriage door closes and they're on the way.

"It's only about a fifteen minute ride from here," M. Fauchelevent says, eyes gazing with purpose out the window from his place next to Marius. "But there might be a few bumps."

"Are you alright Marius?" Enjolras asks, noticing how pale Marius appears.

"I've been better," Marius says, wincing and sending Enjolras a tight smile. "But I'll be alright. You?"

Enjolras reply is cut off by the first of the mentioned bumps, and of reflex he reaches for Combeferre's hand, which is open and ready.

"Hold tight," Combeferre says softly. "Just hold tight."

"I don't want to squeeze the feeling out of your hand," Enjolras says. "If there's more bumps like that, I might."

"It'll come back," Combeferre assures him. "It'll come back."

A rush of affection for Combeferre floods his heart, and he bites his lips against another jolt of pain.

"You have gone beyond your duty once again monsieur," Enjolras says to M. Fauchelevent when the ride smooths out. "Thank you."

"Helping you boys is my duty now," Fauchelevent answers. "And my pleasure. Quiet now, you need to conserve your energy."

Enjolras falls silent, thoughts darting back to his friends, fear shooting through his heart at the thought of something happening to them; he knows every last one of them is exceedingly capable in the face of danger, they've shown that, but still he wants to protect them, to shield them, and yet knows he cannot.

But he will do everything in his power.

And if Javert finds them, if handing himself over means protecting his friends so that they may live their lives freely, so that they can continue fighting for the cause that means so much to all of them…

However, he knows doing so will hurt them, knows that they will attempt to share his fate, and he doesn't want to cause them any further pain…

But if doing so means saving them…

His own words echo back at him, joined with Combeferre's.

_As for myself, constrained as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself._

_We will share thy fate!_

He remembers sending people away from the barricade, remembers the surprised faces of all present, their resolve to stay.

_Let us not waste lives. Let all women and fathers of children, go from here…_

"Enjolras?" Combeferre asks, as if sensing his inner turmoil.

"It's nothing," Enjolras says, evading the question, but squeezes his friend's hand; it's a gesture that lets Combeferre know they will speak later.

They arrive in just under fifteen minutes to a quaint but spacious house set back from a small grove of ivy covered trees and flowers. Much to Combeferre and M. Fauchelevent's chagrin, both Enjolras and Marius insist on staying put in the parlor until the others arrive. Enjolras' entire body throbs with pain and Marius is nearly asleep from exhaustion, but they sit silently with Combeferre moving back and forth between their couches as M. Fauchelevent readies the house and airs out the rooms.

Almost exactly ten minutes later the second group arrives and nearly the moment they cross the threshold Cosette's exasperated voice rings through the room.

"I knew I would find the two of you here!" she exclaims.

Marius opens his eyes fully at hearing her voice, looking sheepish, and if it weren't such a tense situation, Enjolras would've been amused at his friend's expense.

Courfeyrac and Gavroche, on the other hand, can't help but laugh quietly at Cosette's following diatribe and the expression on Marius' face.

"I explicitly told you to head straight upstairs and rest, Marius," she tells him, brows furrowed. Suddenly, Enjolras finds she's rounded on him. "And your mother told me you'd be sitting here Enjolras, you'd best let the others help you to bed before she finds you. And Combeferre, I expected you'd have forced them upstairs."

"I tried mademoiselle," he tells her, raising his hands in defeat. "Enjolras is stubborn certainly, but when you combine that with Marius' own brand of persistence I found myself a bit powerless to refuse them. They were worried."

Monsieur Fauchelevent has prepared the downstairs bedroom so that Enjolras won't have to brave the stairs again with his leg. Before Enjolras can even open his mouth to protest, Fauchelevent picks him gingerly up and carries him to said bedroom as if the weight his nothing, laying him down gently while Courfeyrac and Feuilly help Marius up the stairs, Cosette's concerned words and reassurances following them.

"Thank you monsieur," Enjolras says, settling against the pillows, hearing the wheels of the third carriage crunching on the gravel drive and breathing freely again.

They all made it safely and hopefully without being followed.

"I suspect soon I'll have forgotten how to walk, with treatment like this," Enjolras continues dryly, a hint of a joke in his tone.

Fauchelvent smiles.

"Your legs might have to adjust, but I'm sure Combeferre knows exactly how to go about that," he says, lifting the covers and placing them over Enjolras.

"He usually does," Enjolras answers, watching as Combeferre shakes his head, a smile playing at his lips.

"I'm going to see to your mother, Toussaint, and Adrienne, and then to make sure Cosette has worried Marius into submission, but let me know should you need anything," Fauchelevent says. "And get some rest."

Enjolras nods, eyes following him as he exits.

"I fear we need to change those bandages before I can let you sleep," Combeferre says. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Enjolras is alone for only a moment before Grantaire enters, doing a poor job of masking his concern.

"Are you alright Enjolras?" he asks, hesitating in the doorway.

"I'm in pain, but I'm alright," Enjolras answers, gesturing him forward. "Sit for a moment?"

Grantaire does as requested, but Enjolras can tell he's still worried.

"I'm alright, Grantaire," he says again, softening his tone. "I promise. Doctor Figueron says I'll be fine if we're careful. The infection is nearly gone; it's just a matter of a slow recovery from these wounds."

Grantaire narrows his eyes slightly, studying him.

"Courfeyrac talked to you, didn't he?"

"He said you were very worried and wanted to help," Enjolras admits. "And I could tell as much."

"Did he tell you what happened the night we thought you might die?" Grantaire asks, but there's no anger there, only curiosity.

"A bit," Enjolras says. "He said you were upset."

"He didn't…" Grantaire pauses. "Did he tell you about my brother?"

Shock swoops through Enjolras' person.

"Your…you have a brother?" he questions. "You never…"

"Told anyone?" Grantaire asks, a familiar bitterness wrapping around his words. "No. I don't even know why, really. But he…he died while he was out giving alms to the poor, to the local gamin, and he was mugged by a street gang. There was nothing we could do. He was the oldest, and it ripped my parents apart. He was set to join the clergy."

"Grantaire," Enjolras says, once again lost for words as the pieces of the mystery that makes up Grantaire start putting themselves together, though it still isn't complete. "I'm so sorry."

"I was afraid we were going to lose you," Grantaire says, averting his eyes. "And so I told Courfeyrac about my brother, I told him that I was obviously terrible at coping with losing people I care about. God, the first thing I did when I heard you might die was start drinking, I couldn't even complete one simple task when you entrusted it to me…"

"That might be true," Enjolras says, cutting him off. "But I've also seen you these past few days; you shielded Gavroche with your own body at the barricade, tried shielding me from the army general, you carried me all the way through the sewers, you kept me from running out of the house when I was overcome with fever, you have been there if I needed anything while I've been ill. My point is that you are clearly capable, Grantaire, of being more than you think you are."

"I thought you said I was incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying?" Grantaire says, smirking.

"I was frustrated with you when I said those things," Enjolras says. "And I like now to think I was wrong."

"You were _wrong_?" Grantaire says, amused. "I never thought…"

"Grantaire."

"I apologize," Grantaire says, sincere again. "But you weren't wrong, Enjolras, and you had every right to be frustrated with me then, I…"

"Note that I did not say you were incapable of love," Enjolras interrupts. "And that is a powerful thing. And I know that you love all of us, I have always known that. And that is why a part of me always believed you could be more than you appear."

"Do you ever stop believing?" Grantaire questions, a mixture of reverence and bewilderment in his voice.

"No," Enjolras answers simply.

Silence falls between them for a moment before Enjolras speaks up again.

"I hope you know that we all care about you, that I care about you," he says, warmth coating his words. "Infuriating as you are sometimes."

"You're…" Grantaire begins.

"An ingrate?" Enjolras finishes, quirking one eyebrow. "Yes, I believe you've told me that before. But we may make a believer out of you yet, Grantaire."

"I do believe in you," Grantaire says in a barely-there whisper, and the words strike Enjolras even more forcefully than they did the first time he heard Grantaire speak them.

"I know," Enjolras replies, handling the moment as carefully as he would a newborn child, sensing the change in Grantaire, a change of which he doesn't want to harm the growth. He wants to tell Grantaire that to believe only in a fallible, human, man who is capable of error is a treacherous thing, but decides he will save that for later. He grasps Grantaire's arm for a moment, letting him know his words are genuine, and Grantaire returns the gesture.

Just a few moments later, Combeferre returns with the bandages and Grantaire leaves to speak with Adrienne.

"Courfeyrac told you what happened with Grantaire the other night?" Combeferre asks, closing the door so he might change the bandages without interruption. "I was worried, but Courfeyrac handled it well, as I expected."

"He spoke to me just before we got the news we were to move," Enjolras answers, grimacing as the wrapping comes off his leg. "And asked me to reassure Grantaire. I hope I did so."

"I'm sure you did," Combeferre answers. "Aside from the one instance of drinking, he's been a bit different since the barricade. I think the loss of our friends," he stops his movement for a moment, closing his eyes. "I think instead of making him increasingly cynical, it made him want to fight to make sure the rest of us are safe, you especially. I like to hope it's the start of a change in him. Like you, I've always thought him capable of more, if he would just cease getting in his own way. Cynicism doesn't wear well on anyone and our friend is knee deep in it."

"I like to think there's been some progress, I hope there has been," Enjolras says, feeling the exhaustion creep into his bones. "But I worry Combeferre, for all of us, I don't want any of us to lose of our belief and I don't want Grantaire's lack of it increasing. Fighting for that belief, for our cause, it's at the core of my soul."

"I know," Combeferre says, taking a moment to smile at Enjolras before moving to change his shoulder bandage. "And we won't lose that belief. I certainly know you won't; it's too large a part of who you are, it's too large a part of all of us, too much a part of the friends we've lost. But in grief, sometimes, all seems distorted."

"Yes," Enjolras agrees. "Yes, you're right."

"We will talk more once you've slept," Combeferre says. "You're due for another dose of Laudanum. Overdue."

And so Enjolras begrudgingly accepts the foul medication, and only minutes later, sleep captures him and carries him away on its waves.

* * *

Javert goes alone to the address Valjean gave him, the address that's burned into his brain.

One, because he's not certain he's right.

Two, because he's still not certain what he's going to do if he is.

His heart beats wildly in his chest as he approaches number seven; he'd never wanted to see Valjean again, never wanted to think of him again, had only wanted to end his life in the murky depths of the Seine.

But no.

No, Valjean's daughter saved him, and attempting to throw yourself into the river a second time isn't so easy once the initial impulse has left you.

He'd hoped his superiors wouldn't assign him to this case, and the pressure raining down on him has only increased now that Inspector Ancel most surprisingly located the whereabouts of the leader of another of the barricades, a leader they'd thought dead.

But they did assign him, and now the only way out is death or resignation.

Currently, death seems the better option.

He moves closer, noting that no lights are on in the house and yet it's just after sundown and too early for all of them to have retired.

_If the rebels are there in the first place_, he tells himself.

_Oh, they're there_, a second voice answers. _You know they are_. _24601 can't help himself with saving people._

_The man of mercy comes again, and talks of justice…_

Before once again starting the internal battle with himself, he knocks.

"Police," he says firmly. "Open the door."

He snorts. As if Valjean would simply waltz over and open the door for an officer of the law and invite him in for coffee.

Although knowing Valjean, he just might.

There's resolutely no answer, and in light of the insurrection, the king has suspended the need for warrants to search suspected premises of insurgent leaders. And although he hates himself for having the skill, Javert makes quick work of the lock, the door creaking loudly as it swings open.

He prays that he'll find no evidence, that Valjean and his daughter have simply vacated the home for other reasons, have gone out of town, that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the missing rebels, with Enjolras.

_But he was carrying the Pontmercy boy…_

But still he searches, driven by his duty even as his head pounds agonizingly with conflict. He searches the entrance hall, the kitchen, the alcoves, but it's not until he's about to head to the second floor that he notices it, draped almost absentmindedly on one of the chairs in the front room.

A blood-stained red jacket.

Enjolras' jacket.

A/N: I realize this is a bit of cliffhanger, and therefore I hope you don't hate me. But just remember to trust me, okay? I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and do let me know what you thought!


	13. A Man Named Jean Valjean

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thanks again for reading, alerting, and for all of your lovely feedback! I've been sick this week so I didn't get a chance to answer all of your reviews, but I'm going to make an effort this time around, because they are so appreciated! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 13: A Man Named Jean Valjean

Three days pass, and there's no sign of Javert.

But the tension levels in the house rise slowly, agonizingly higher, and Enjolras feels it aching in his bones, burning in his chest, forming knots in his stomach. Rationally he knows that his friends are safe here, that M. Fauchelevent can be trusted, that it would be incredibly difficult for Inspector Javert to trace them here.

But he'd much rather get his friends safely out of Paris.

And he knows his friends want _him_ out of Paris.

But he also knows that neither he nor Marius is in any condition for the six or seven day carriage ride to Avignon, so here they must stay, for now. He's just woken up again after being forced to into sleep by Combeferre, and awoke to an oddly empty room.

The door creaks on its hinges, alerting him to his mother's presence.

"I was just coming into check on you," she says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking his hand out of instinct. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," he says truthfully. "Still in pain, still tired, but better, even though I know I must look a fright. Only a low-grade fever now, Combeferre says. It should be gone in a day or two."

A marked, uncomfortable silence falls between them, and Enjolras feels his mother's anxiety pulsing through her veins when she brushes the hair from his eyes out of habit. It was always falling into his eyes as a child, and now that he's an adult it's no different.

"I'll be alright Maman," he says softly, feeling the desperate need to put her at ease. "It will just take some recovery time."

"You're not alright," she replies, hesitant terror glittering in her eyes that so mirror his own, and Enjolras realizes in that moment that she surely thought him dead for at least several days, so it's almost as if he's been resurrected. "You've been shot, you nearly _died_, Rene, the police are looking for you…" she stops abruptly. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make this worse for you, I've only been…"

"Holding it in?" he asks, finishing her thought. "Yes, I thought as much."

And then she's embracing him with careful tenderness, and she's so close he can smell the perfume she's used since he can remember. He returns the gesture, resting his head on her shoulder and exhaling a breathe he didn't know he was holding.

"I would have you and your friends home with me in an instant," she tells him, pulling him closer. "But I know the police will look there if they're able."

"Have you sent word to père?" Enjolras says, asking the question he's been avoiding for days because thinking of his father fills him with fury and breaks his heart all at once. He's tried to encase himself in ice when it comes to that relationship, but it hasn't been entirely possible.

"I sent him a letter the moment I thought you might be alive," she tells him. "But there hasn't been time for me to receive his answer just yet. But I know if the authorities go looking for you at home, he'll turn them away. He might disagree with you Rene, but he doesn't want you arrested, doesn't want you dead. Of that I'm certain."

Enjolras nods, knowing she's right, but the fact that his father doesn't want him dead or in prison does little to ease the sting of his rejection. Enjolras doesn't regret his own actions in the least, doesn't regret turning his back and walking out of the house that fateful day, but he still wishes his father would bother listening to his thoughts and opinions, would bother trying to understand why his son must fight so hard for this cause.; it would certainly be easier on his mother.

"When do you have to go back home?"

"There is no 'when I have to' in this situation," she says firmly. "I shall go when I know you're safe in the country and away from here. M. Fauchelevent told me he was happy to have me stay at my leisure, and both he and M. Gillenormand told me I'm welcome to visit in Avignon. It's not a terrible journey from Marseille, in any case. But you must listen to M. Fauchelvent, Rene, you must promise me."

"I will," Enjolras agrees.

_I don't know how to be a fugitive_, he wants to say. _But I'll have to learn._

_But, _he continues._ M. Fauchelevent might know. _

Enjolras doesn't usually speak of fate, of destiny, but something tells him that M. Fauchelevent rescuing them, as opposed to anyone else, is not an accident.

He'd known the moment he whispered the word _revolution_ within the hallowed walls of the top floor of the Musain that becoming a fugitive was one of only three possibilities, but the reality of it is different, as is usually the case with these things. He doesn't tell his mother that if turning himself in will save his remaining friends that he'll do it in a heartbeat. He will spare her that, because he cannot spare her anything else.

"I've told Combeferre and Courfeyrac that I'll contact their families on my journey home, since they live in the south as well and are not far off my route," she says, gazing at him with an expression that makes him think she's reading his thoughts. "I asked Feuilly if there was anyone I could contact for him, but…"

"He doesn't have any family to speak of," Enjolras says sadly. "He lost his father at eight, his mother at 9, and he's been on his own ever since. He's a self-taught man, will read anything he can get his hands on, knows all kinds of things about history in other countries, and yet he's never gotten the chance to formally learn. He's the heart of our cause directly among us."

His mother smiles at him, placing her small hand on the side of his face.

"You have always had a heart full of fire," she says, a melancholy affection in her tone. "And I much as I wish it didn't put you in peril, I do not want you to be any other way, because then you would not be the man you are."

She named him correctly, Enjolras thinks. Rene means "reborn" and it is his greatest desire to give France new life, even if it means the cost of his own.

"I'm accompanying Toussaint and Adrienne to the market," she continues, patting his hand. "But I'll see you after a little while."

He bids her farewell, but is only alone for a moment when Combeferre takes her place, looking a smidge tickled.

"What's so humorous?" Enjolras asks, curious.

"I just left the others trying to convince Gavroche into the new clothes M. Fauchelvent purchased for him," Combeferre answers, a twinkle in his eyes. "Cosette was going to do it, but she went to lay down with a headache, and so left it to Courfeyrac, and the others couldn't help but join in."

Enjolras smiles; Gavroche has been thrilled to sleep consistently in a real bed, but it's hard to imagine him in stiff new clothes, even if he desperately needs them. Gavroche stays with them because Enjolras fears the repercussions if the police recognize him from the barricade; he might be a child, but that won't prevent them from questioning him about their whereabouts, and none of them want him in any kind of danger.

But Gavroche also stays because it's clear he can't bear to leave them.

Really they're all he has, and the effects of watching so many of their comrades die, of losing Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel, and Prouvaire, are obvious, even in such a high-spirited child.

"Combeferre?" Enjolras asks.

"Hmm?" Combeferre replies, looking at his friend over the tops of his glasses. "Something the matter?"

"I need to speak with you about something," Enjolras answers, keeping himself steady in anticipation of Combeferre's inevitable protest. "Something I'd like to keep private between us."

"Alright," Combeferre says slowly, drawing out the word in uncertainty. "What is it?"

"If something happens to me," Enjolras begins, holding his friend's gaze. "I need you to protect the others."

"Enjolras," Combeferre says instantly, furrowing his brows. "Nothing is going to happen to you."

"You don't know that for certain," Enjolras argues. "My face is all over Paris Combeferre, and I will not stand for any of you to come to harm because of me."

"You are our friend, Enjolras," Combeferre says, gentle even in his harshness. "And we would not come to harm _because_ of you. Not only do we want to stand by you personally, but we were fighting for this cause, too. We are just as willing to accept the consequences."

"I know that very well," Enjolras says, keeping his voice low. "And that's even more reason for me to ask this of you. We need people to live for this cause, Combeferre, enough have died already. And if the government's focus on me means the rest of you can be free to fight on, then so be it."

Combeferre peers at him, eyes narrowed in slight frustration.

"You don't have to die," he says, voice almost a whisper. "There is a real chance for our safety, I believe that."

"I know," Enjolras says again. "I'm only asking this as a precaution, I'm not going to go offer myself up right this moment, I wouldn't do that to any of you. But if Javert somehow finds us and my arrest is inevitable, I want a plan in place. I don't want the others offering themselves up on my behalf, I cannot…"

Without warning Enjolras' voice breaks and he stops mid-sentence, closing his eyes against the tears that threaten him, tears that have threatened him for days. Grantaire had once teasingly called him the "marble lover of liberty," but right now he feels infinitely more vulnerable than marble, feels so very human that it cuts to his core. Combeferre allows him a moment, resting a hand on his back.

"We have lost four of our closest friends already, as well as a great number of comrades," Enjolras finally says. "I cannot bear the thought of the rest of you meeting the same fate, not when there's a chance for you to live."

"We cannot bear the thought of losing _you_," Combeferre argues, wetness around his eyes. "Which I think is evident given our reactions a few nights ago. And yet you dare request this of me Enjolras, knowing that I might consent only because you asked it of me."

"I didn't _want_ to ask you," Enjolras replies, putting a hand on top of Combeferre's. "I didn't want to burden you, but it is five lives versus one. There is no need for all of you…"

"I will protect the others," Combeferre tells him, voice wavering ever so slightly. "I promise you. But if you think that means I will not also attempt to protect you, then you are mistaken."

Enjolras can't help but smile at his words.

"I would share your fate," Combeferre says, meeting his eyes. "You have to know that."

"I do," Enjolras answers, squeezing his friend's hand. "I do know."

They hear footsteps approaching, and after a moment Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Feuilly, Marius, and Gavroche are all in the doorway, Gavroche sporting a rather sour expression; he's dressed in fresh trousers, shirt, and jacket, although he apparently weaseled out of the waistcoat.

"I see you were victorious, Courfeyrac," Combeferre says, raising his eyebrows at Gavroche in amusement.

"Took some doing," Courfeyac replies, planting a hand on Gavroche's mussed hair.

"And some squirming," Grantaire adds. "But we think he looks rather nice, ourselves."

"Oh be quiet you lot," Gavroche says, crossing his arms moodily across his chest. "Never said I gave a rat for fashion."

"Fashion, maybe not," Courfeyrac says, an indulgent grin on his face. "But you should 'give a rat' for cleanliness. Anyhow, we didn't come in here to tease Gavroche." His expression grows serious, and he looks toward Enjolras. "Feuilly thinks maybe we ought to try talking to M. Fauchelevent while we've got the chance."

"Your mother, Toussaint, and Adrienne are out," Feuilly explains. "And Cosette is upstairs with a bit of a headache, so we might have some privacy. I just think we'd all like to know the truth; it would put us more at ease, and the tension in the air right now is thick enough."

He looks at Enjolras for permission, for agreement. Enjolras senses that Feuilly's instinct against trusting an essential stranger is kicking in, and he cannot blame him; Feuilly has seen the harder side of life, has had his trust betrayed while he tried to find his feet in life. Feuilly trusting the other Amis was a sign of the strength of their friendship, and Enjolras can tell Feuilly is torn between his natural generosity and his suspicion where M. Fauchelevent is concerned. Enjolras feels an innate trust in the older man, but even still, knowing the truth about his identity, about his confrontation with Javert, will perhaps make them all sleep easier at night. They've thrown in their lots together, and honesty almost seems a requirement now.

"I don't think that's a bad idea," Enjolras says. "He's done a great deal for us and I don't want him to feel as if he's being confronted, so we need to be careful.

"I can go find him," Marius offers, looking a bit jumpy; this is the father of Marius' beloved, after all, but something tells Enjolras that if Fauchlevent can raise a daughter as kind as Cosette, his crime cannot have been all that serious.

And yet Inspector Javert trailed him, but he also let him go free…

"Don't be ridiculous Marius," Courfeyrac says, turning to go. "You're meant to be in bed as it is. I'll go."

He's gone for only a moment, and yet when they hear him approaching again with M. Fauchelevent, the older man is already chuckling appreciatively at something Courfeyrac's said, and Enjolras is quietly grateful for his friend's easy going nature, at his warmth and talent with people.

"You boys wanted to speak with me?" Fauchlevent asks, a nervous smile on his lips, as if he suspects the nature of their question.

"Yes," Enjolras says, cutting to the chase. "We wanted to ask you about something that happened the night you rescued us from the barricade, something that Grantaire happened to overhear."

Fauchelevent stiffens instantaneously, and Enjolras' eyes flit wordlessly to Courfeyrac.

"We don't mean to intrude upon personal matters monsieur," Courfeyrac adds amiably. "You have done an unspeakable amount for us, but the truth about the confrontation you had with Inspector Javert would put us all at ease, I think."

"As he has been assigned to find me," Enjolras continues, looking Fauchelevent directly in the eyes, but the man's expression is too difficult to fathom. "And as we left your other home so quickly when we found this out, yet we also know he released you with Marius…we need to understand the pieces of this story, that is all we ask monsieur, to possess all the information we need to protect ourselves."

"Inspector Javert knew the address of my other home," Fauchelevent says, a bit sharper than Enjolras has yet heard him. "He will not find us here."

"No disrespect monsieur," Grantaire says cordially, speaking up. "But you don't know that. The inspector seemed rather intent that night from what I could tell, and even still he released you. It doesn't make sense."

"We have all agreed that we are incredibly indebted to you," Combeferre says. "And we are certainly not here to judge you."

"You are a good man monsieur," Enjolras says in agreement, sincerity in his tone. "Gavroche has told us how you give alms to the poor, and you came to the barricade to save Marius at great risk to you own life and then saved as many of us as you could. We would appreciate your honesty, not punish you for it."

"We give you our word on that," Marius says. "We would know the man who saved our lives."

Fauchelevent softens a bit, sighing apprehensively.

"What exactly did you hear?" he asks, looking at Grantaire.

"I heard Javert confront you," Grantaire says, twisting his fingers in his lap. "Heard him tell you he would not give in, heard him call you 24601 and…and Valjean. The man of mercy. And then he let you go with Marius."

Valjean is silent for a moment, and Enjolras sees the pain glimmering in his eyes, and he fervently wishes that they didn't have to dredge up what are clearly terrible memories for this man.

And yet there is no other choice.

"That is my name," Fauchelevent finally says, closing his eyes for a moment as if saying the name brings an entirely different person to life. "Jean Valjean. 24601 was my prison number at Toulon, in the galleys."

He looks around at all of them, waiting for judgment, waiting for harsh words, but they only let him continue.

"I had a sister with seven children," he says, eyes falling to the floor. "And we were starving. So one night I broke the window of a baker's shop and stole a loaf of bread, but I was caught before I could even make it back home. I was given five years for my crime, but I tried to escape several times and so served nineteen years in full before they put me on parole."

He stops, letting the information sink in, and Enjolras feels the injustice of the story burning like wildfire in his heart. Nineteen years for what amounted to one loaf of bread. Jean Valjean is not a rapist, not a murder, not a thief who stole some large sum of money.

He is man who wanted to save his family, no matter the cost to himself.

And despite the difference in circumstance that's something to which Enjolras can whole-heartedly relate.

"Javert was a guard there," Valjean continues. "And was the one who gave me my parole papers. But no matter where I went, it was nearly impossible to find steady work, food, or shelter, because of the stigma of being a convict. Hate filled my heart, and so one evening when a kindly bishop offered me shelter and food for the evening, I…" he stops, and it seems as if the words he's avoiding stab him like knives. "I stole some of his silver. I was caught on the way out of town, but when they brought me back to his home, the bishop told them he'd given me the silver and proceeded to give me the silver candlesticks that rest on the mantel in the parlor. He bid me to start a new life, to be an honest man."

"And you broke your parole," Enjolras says lightly. "Hence the name change."

"Yes," Valjean says, nodding. "Fauchelevent is not the first name I've had, but that is of little matter. It was the only way for me to start over, and I did the best I could to be the man the bishop would have wished me to be, because it was the least I could do; he saved my life, my soul. And that's why I'm compelled to help you boys, because if it weren't for bishop, I don't know that I would have ever found my way out an increasingly difficult situation."

"And Cosette?" Marius asks, albeit gently. "Is she not your daughter?"

"Biologically speaking, no," Valjean answers. "She is the daughter of one of the workers I employed in a factory I owned in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Her mother died, and I adopted Cosette and love her as my own. But the full story of that is Cosette's to tell."

Enjolras suspects that Valjean is humbling himself significantly, suspects that this man has likely done more good than he will ever let them know.

"And Javert has trailed you all these years?" Feuilly asks, all traces of suspicion gone when he hears Valjean speaking about adopting Cosette.

"For breaking my parole," Valjean says. "We have had several encounters, but despite that, I released him at the barricade, and that I am certain, is what prompted him to release me with Marius, even if it broke every last code he holds dear. He wrestles with the idea that a former convict is capable of good deeds, wrestles with the idea of the mere existence of mercy, of change."

"Cosette said she saw an officer looking as if he was about to jump into the Seine the night she came looking for us at the barricade," Marius says, the pieces flying together behind his eyes. "Was that Javert?"

"Yes," Valjean replies. "Yes, I am positive about that."

"Do you know what his movements might be?" Enjolras says, asking the question he knows is on everyone's minds.

"Before I would have told you yes," Valjean says honestly. "But now…I am not sure. I feel that he won't want to confront me further, but I also know he feels bound by his duty, and this conflict he's having, a conflict that caused him to nearly commit suicide…I fear it might make him even more dangerous, more determined. We must be careful. Thankfully he does not know the names I used to purchase my properties, but even still, I do not yet trust the situation. But I will do my best to keep all of you safe, that I can promise you."

Silence envelops the room, and Enjolras can tell by the look in Valjean's eyes that he is ashamed to admit his past, that some part of him will be forever haunted by the memories.

"Monsieur Valjean," Enjolras says testing out the new name and clasping a hand on the man's shoulder, causing him to look up. "Thank you. For telling us. For everything."

Valjean's smile is stitched with sadness, but he rests a warm hand briefly over Enjolras'.

"I would like to keep this between us and Cosette, if that's alright," Valjean says, looking at each of them before his eyes land on Marius. "I don't want this affecting any of your intentions toward Cosette, Marius. Your grandfather, I…"

"Monsieur," Marius says, resting his own hand on Valjean's shoulder. "You are a saint. A saint of a man who has raised an angel of a daughter. If anything, I am only further encouraged."

Valjean shakes his head at the compliment but smiles anyway.

"We'd best get you back to bed before Cosette finds you out again," Valjean says in reply. "I think I hear her stirring upstairs."

"I would rather not face her well-intentioned wrath," Marius says, looking increasingly relieved and allowing Valjean to help him up. "Although I fear that when Enjolras is able to be up and about he will be worse than I am."

"Now that is absolutely true," Combeferre agrees, sharing an amused look with Marius.

"As if any of you would be any better," Enjolras grumbles good-naturedly.

"Loads better," Grantaire teases. "And that's the truth."

"Well, you'd both best behave," Valjean says, laughing now. "Doctor Figueron will be by in an hour, and he will not be pleased if either of you aggravate your wounds."

With that he goes to help Marius back up the stairs before Cosette awakes, and Enjolras thinks to himself that they have just come under the wing of one of the most selfless men he's ever met.

* * *

If Javert didn't know Valjean better, he would think that the convict left the red jacket there to mock him.

As it is…

The jacket is still mocking him.

He should have trusted his instincts, should have known the instant Enjolras and his lieutenants were missing that the Pontmercy boy wasn't the only insurgent 24601 rescued. He should have gone instantly to the address Valjean gave him the moment he suspected a thing and arrested that foolish schoolboy on the spot. He just missed them, he knows, could practically still feel the intensity of their hurry to leave the moment he stepped into foyer, and that makes him all the more frustrated.

_But that would have meant facing Valjean again_.

_That would have meant being faced with everything that nearly sent you spiraling off a very literal bridge._

Despite the fact that Javert was at this particular barricade, his superiors do not believe there is enough evidence to arrest the lieutenants and bring them to trial (and they are also trying to show the people that they can be merciful and not altogether bloodthirsty while still remaining firm), but have told him to use what force is necessary against the others should they attempt to protect Enjolras, even if it means arresting them for obstruction of justice. The leader Inspector Ancel discovered is set for trial in a matter of days, and his sentence will be either life imprisonment or death.

But the Prefect suspects, as does Javert, that only a firing squad awaits that boy, because Louis-Phillipe wants to prove that his reign remains solid.

And a firing squad makes a much better example than a prison cell.

Javert feels the pressure building behind his eyes and rubs his temples with his fingers. He told no one that he went searching at Valjean's residence because he had previous knowledge; instead he told them he'd received a tip from one of the neighbors.

Because he cannot possibly tell them the truth, cannot tell them he knowingly allowed an ex-convict who broke his parole go free with not only one rebel, but unknowingly with five more, including the sought after leader whose face is plastered all over Paris.

_You are not capable of arresting Valjean_, that dark voice in the corner of his mind whispers again. _And you know it._

_Perhaps not_, he tells himself. _But I am capable of arresting Enjolras._

_Are you certain?_

He shakes his head and internally begs for mental quiet, looking up again.

"Bertrand!" he calls through the open door of his office. "I need property records!"

His underling rushes inside, looking overtly intimidated.

"Property records monsieur?" he asks timidly. "For whom?"

"I…" Javert thinks for a moment rifling his brain for any pseudonyms Valjean might have used. "Try Madeline. Bring me everything you have with the last name Madeline in all of Paris."

"Yes Inspector," Bertrand says, rushing gladly out again.

Javert goes back to staring at the jacket.


	14. Remembrance

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you again for all of your continued support on this story, it is much appreciated! I am putting a FEELS warning on this chapter, as I got emotional while writing it and watching the Les Mis film on loop. But I do hope you enjoy! Also the dream sequence is in italics here at the beginning.

Chapter 14: Remembrance

_Sunlight bathes Enjolras in warmth, bathes him in warmth so pleasant that he doesn't want to open his eyes, just wants to lay here and sleep._

_Until he hears the voice._

"_I shouldn't be surprised," Bahorel says, and Enjolras can hear him snickering good-naturedly. "It's typical of you, taking too much on your shoulders, blaming yourself."_

_Enjolras sits up like a shot._

"_Bahorel?" he asks, eyes widening as he looks over his friend's form. He looks like Bahorel alright, broad, grinning slyly, fists that look like they could punch through concrete and donning the brightest red and yellow striped waist-coat Enjolras has ever seen._

"_Ah, glad to see you still recognize me," Bahorel jokes. "Although admittedly, I'm a little difficult to forget."_

"_I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Enjolras asks. "Or did I die?"_

"_No, you're not dead, thankfully," Bahorel says, a smidge softer now. "Combeferre would be furious if you were, he's put too much effort into nursing you back to health. And Grantaire didn't carry you all that way so you could die, either, and I don't think Gavroche would ever forgive you for such a crime. You and Marius have been worrying everyone."_

"_So dreaming, then."_

"_Dreaming. A visit from the great beyond. Something in between," Bahorel answers, his grin growing wider before turning serious, and when Bahorel is serious, Enjolras pays attention. "Now you listen here, Enjolras. You need to stop feeling guilty over our deaths. Grieving us is only natural, but no more guilt."_

"_I'm not," Enjolras stammers. "I…"_

"_Our awe-inspiring leader is lost for words!" Bahorel teases. "And yes, you are feeling guilty. Isn't he Jehan?"_

"_He is," Jehan says, inexplicably walking up beside Bahorel and sitting down on the grass, his shoulder-length light brown hair fluttering in the breeze. He's somber, but he still offers Enjolras a melancholy smile that Enjolras can't help but return. "And he shouldn't be."_

"_I'll third that," Joly says, appearing behind him with cane in hand and instantly tossing an arm around Enjolras' shoulder._

"_I'd add in my lot," Bossuet says with a half-smile before sitting down next to Joly. "But I'm rather afraid I'd jinx it."_

_Enjolras gazes around at them all, soaking up their presence, soaking up the moment, even if it's just a dream. They're themselves in this particular unconscious venture; they're whole, rather than the black-eyed, blood drenched specters haunting him during his fever-ridden nights. _

"_I know you were at the barricades because you wanted to be," he tells them. "I know this cause meant as much to you as it does to me, that you were willing to die for it, that you did die for it, I just…I still wanted to protect you. All of you. I would rather it have been me."_

"_And that's just the problem," Jehan says quietly, peering at Enjolras and twirling a tiny picked flower between his fingers. "You need to stop wishing yourself dead instead of us, Enjolras. You are alive, and there's a reason for that. You need to find that reason and use it."_

"_I know," Enjolras says, his voice tight with held back feeling. "I…"_

"_You miss us and you're traumatized," Joly says simply. "It's hasn't even been two weeks, Enjolras, give yourself some time to grieve, to recover. Grieve, not guilt. It's bad for your health anyway, you know. It causes…"_

"_I don't think he needs a laundry list of the physical manifestations of guilt," Bossuet says with a chuckle, tapping Joly lightly on the shoulder. _

"_We…we feel like a broken unit without you," Enjolras admits, looking around at each of them in turn. He looks down, memories of the barricade flooding his mind with sharp, painful clarity. _

_**You at the barricade listen to this! The people of Paris sleep in their beds! You have no chance, no chance at all! Why throw your lives away?**_

_**Damn their warnings, damn their lies, they will see the people rise…**_

"_I'm sorry the people didn't come," he continues, clenching his fists. "I was so certain…they abandoned us because of their fear…"_

_At hearing the hint of uncharacteristic doubt flood his voice, Enjolras feels Jehan take his hand and pull him closer so that they're face to face, a gentle but still intrepid gleam in the poet's eyes as he intertwines their fingers. _

"_One day they will rise," Jehan tells him, gripping his hand with ferocity. "And you know that, Enjolras. You've always known that. You have eternal faith in the beauty that will be the future, you have more belief than anyone I've ever known, as well as the strength to fight, to make the hard decisions, and I will not see you let go of that. The 19__th__ century is great, but the 20__th__ century will be happy, remember?"_

"_Our sacrifice will mean something," Joly adds sagely. "Of that I can promise you."_

"_And you will keep fighting," Bossuet says. "All of you will. Together. Always together."_

"_In memory of you," Enjolras says firmly. "Always in memory of you."_

"_And for Patria," Bahorel says, teasing but sincere. "Can't have you forgetting about your Mistress France."_

_For the first time since the barricade, even if it is just a dream, Enjolras' smile reaches his eyes, and they shine a sparkling blue as he etches his friends' faces in his mind. He has a sudden urge to ask Grantaire to pick up his paintbrush again so he can paint their friends' faces so he never forgets them, so that none of them ever forget the way Bahorel's grin always fills to the brim with laughter, the way Jehan's eyes glow with bright fervor when he discovers a new poem, the way Bossuet's expressions are nearly always bursting with some degree of cheer, even when he's distressed, the way Joly always rubs the tip of his nose with his cane absentmindedly, a smile spreading slowly across his face when someone says something amusing._

"_We have to go now, I'm afraid," Bahorel says. "But do tell the others hello for us."_

"_I will," Enjolras answers as Bahorel pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. "And I will also tell Courfeyrac how much he would have hated that waistcoat," he adds mildly._

_Bahorel's laugh rings through the surrounding sky. "Nonsense, Courfeyrac would love this. Feuilly would hate it though. Likes too many soft colors for a fan painter. I'd expect more flare."_

_Bahorel ruffles his hair before letting go, then Joly and Bossuet hug him both at once with great enthusiasm and he memorizes the moment. Jehan hugs him last._

"_Remember what I said," he warns. "Or I shall write a very angry poem about it."_

"_I promise," Enjolras whispers back. _

_And then they're gone._

Enjolras' eyes open slowly, and there's sunlight filtering in through the window; he's in pain as is usually the case in the mornings, and shifts up, trying to avoid making it worse. He doesn't like taking Laudanum in the morning because it makes him hazy, but he fears he may not have a choice on this particular day.

"You're awake earlier than usual," Grantaire's voice says from his right, and Enjolras opens his eyes fully and turns his head.

"Am I?" he asks, sitting up further, wincing.

"It's only about nine," Grantaire answers, noting his expression and pouring a dose of the Laudanum, which Enjolras waves away in protest, and to his surprise Grantaire doesn't force the matter.

"Combeferre would insist I take that," Enjolras says, glancing at the bottle, perplexed.

"Well, I am decidedly not Combeferre," Grantaire jokes fondly. "No glasses, less medical training, and although I'm well read, seem to lack the ability to keep all the information ever created in my brain."

Enjolras chuckles softly, but sadness swoops through his stomach when he remembers his very recent dream.

"What's wrong?" Grantaire asks, searching Enjolras' face. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"No, not at all," Enjolras says, looking up at him and once again seeing the genuine concern in his eyes. "It was a pleasant dream, actually. I saw…I saw Jehan, Joly, Bossuet, and Bahorel, and they weren't like they have been in my nightmares, they were just…themselves."

A sad smile tweaks Grantaire's lips and he looks down for a moment, words for once, evading him. Grantaire is famous for his diatribes and Enjolras is capable of speaking at length to crowds, of inspiring them with his words that are lit with the living, breathing flame of his passion, of his love, and yet in the face of this grief, they are both rendered silent.

"Their funerals," Enjolras says, the hint of a revelation in his voice. "They must have…my mother said she saw bodies being retrieved from the barricade, so their families…there must have been funerals."

Grantaire looks at him again, mildly startled.

"Yes, Enjolras I'm sure there were funerals," he says slowly, as if he's concerned that fever has once more overcome Enjolras and he will bolt for the door as he had on that first night.

"We didn't get to attend them," Enjolras clarifies, feeling as if someone has sent a fist flying directly into his gut. In all of the rush, in all of the insanity, this thought hadn't occurred to him until now.

"No," Grantaire says, the realization dawning on him. "No we didn't. But funerals…sometimes they don't help, they just make you feel worse." His word are sprinkled with cynicism and yet he speaks them with the utmost gentleness as if he fears he will break something, fears he will break himself, Enjolras, or both, and Enjolras can almost see the colored memories of his brother's funeral swirling beneath Grantaire's dark green eyes.

"We need to honor them," Enjolras insists. "We need to do something, Grantaire, we must."

Before Grantaire can respond there's a soft knock on the door and Cosette enters, carrying a tea tray.

"Sorry for interrupting, but I made Marius some tea when he woke up and I thought you might like some," she says, setting the tray down on the bedside table and smiling warmly at the two of them.

"Thank you Cosette," Enjolras replies. "That was kind of you. How is Marius this morning? He went to bed earlier than usual last night."

"He's doing better, on the mend," she answers, pouring one cup for Enjolras and one for Grantaire. "Though he did rip his bandages in the night, so Combeferre is changing them now and checking him over. I think he must have had a nightmare, because I heard him shouting and insisting he needed to come and check on all of you, kept saying something must have happened to you, Enjolras. It took him a moment to realize he'd only been dreaming. I had to stop him from bolting down here."

"It's a shame we can't shut our minds off, sometimes," Grantaire reflects aloud, taking a gulp of his tea.

"Bolting after a nightmare seems to be a habit amongst us," Enjolras adds with a glance at Grantaire, remembering his first fever dream and his subsequent tussle with his friend. "Luckily people seem to be adept at stopping us."

"You came at me like a wall and knocked me to the floor," Grantaire says, laughing now. "And you don't even have use of both arms and legs at the moment. The sheer power of your stubbornness even when you are ridden with fever is truly a thing to behold, Enjolras. How did you stop Marius, Cosette, and come away unscathed?"

"I was checking on him while he was still sleeping," Cosette says. "And noticed he was distressed and pinned his arms down. He nearly struck me with his elbow when he woke up, he was under so much duress, but luckily he missed. Now he won't stop apologizing."

"That sounds like Marius," Enjolras says, good-naturedly shaking his head.

"I didn't mean to overhear," Cosette says after a moment. "But I heard you mention not being able to go to your friends' funerals and I…I think I might have an idea. It's not the same, but I spoke to Papa last night, and I thought perhaps you might…like to have a sort of wake for them? Light a candle, say a prayer? I don't know if that would help, I just…" she trails off, blushing slightly but still determined to get her thoughts across. "I thought it might be good for all of you."

Enjolras' eyes widen slightly, but affection for the kind young woman he's getting to know blossoms within him. He's watched her gentleness and patience with Marius as he heals, has watched her with Valjean, has been continually surprised at her desire to get to know all of them, of her desire to check in on him while he convalesces. Her father's decision to save them has changed her life, but she's accepted them with open arms and an even more welcoming soul.

"I think we all might like that," Enjolras agrees. "I think we all might like that a great deal."

* * *

A few hours later finds all of them sitting in a semi-circle of chairs in the parlor. Combeferre has allowed Enjolras and Marius out of bed for only an hour, and even still the worry in his expression is evident. Enjolras looks at the solemn group arranged around him; Combeferre is to his right, eyes roving over all of them with concern; Courfeyrac sits to Enjolras' left, his expression of sadness so poignant that it makes Enjolras' heart shudder for missing his friend's usual animation; Marius sits beside Courfeyrac, hand resting tightly in Cosette's; Feuilly sits next to Combeferre, head bowed; Grantaire sits beside Feuilly, staring into the glasses of wine Toussaint has brought them all, swirling it around in the glass, and Gavroche sits so close his arm brushes Grantaire's. Adrienne and Enjolras' mother sit together beside Gavroche, both observers of and participants in this intimate moment of intense grief.

Valjean lights two large silver candlesticks that rest on the edges of the mantel, their flames glowing brightly in the dimmed room, lit in memory of all of their comrades who met at the Musain, for all of their comrades that fought upon various barricades across Paris those that fateful fifth and sixth of June. To Enjolras it is feels far and yet alarmingly near, feels like over the last week and half his life became something completely different from what he knew, from what he expected.

"Bless them, Lord," Valjean says softly. "And keep them warm in your embrace."

Valjean then takes his place beside Cosette and looks at Enjolras wistfully, empathy brimming in his eyes. Enjolras feels everyone's eyes on him, and he searches for words, searches for comfort to give to them, to give to himself, drawing inspiration from his friends' words in his dream, because he cannot forget them.

"Our friends," Enjolras begins, willing his voice to stay under control, steadying when he feels Courfeyrac's hand on his arm. "Were some of the bravest, passionate, selfless, and dedicated men I ever had the privilege of knowing. Our group of friends formed a family, still forms a family, and…" he stops, his grief tripping him and sending his words crashing down for a moment. "That will never change, even if they are gone from us. They will always, _always_ be a part of who we are, and I firmly believe that their sacrifice will lead to the realization of the free France we all dreamt of together. We will fight on, always in their memory."

He halts again and Courfeyrac's grip tightens encouragingly on his arm. "But that does not do everything to ease the pain of losing them, of missing them, and now, I'd like to remember them."

He nods at Combeferre, who presses his hand before rising and walking slowly to the first unlit candle and lighting it with the utmost reverence.

"Jehan," he whispers, voice reverberating with grief.

He sits down and Courfeyrac rises, lighting the second candle.

"Bahorel," he says, the tiniest of smiles breaking through his melancholy and illuminating the darkness.

Feuilly follows him, and Enjolras sees tears swelling in his eyes, because he's already so well-acquainted with death that experiencing it again, experiencing it so violently, can only bring back memories.

"Joly," he says, tapping the candle lightly before lighting it.

Grantaire gets up, and Enjolras notices that his hands are shaking as he lights the candle, but still he manages it.

"Bossuet." His voice is low, almost gravely when he speaks, and his eyes are trained to the floor as he walks back.

Gavroche pats Grantaire's shoulder when he sits back down, then rises and joins Marius to light the last candle, both taking their matches and reaching into the center to light the wick.

"Eponine," they say together, and Marius reaches down to embrace Gavroche before returning to his seat.

Enjolras notices something flit across Cosette's face at the mention of Eponine; there's certainly sorrow there, but Enjolras also notices an emotion that he cannot quite place a finger on, something that tells him Cosette somehow knew Marius' friend. Valjean wished to let Cosette tell them the details of her own childhood if and when she was ready, but Enjolras senses now, that suffering was once the close companion of this generous-hearted girl that Marius loves.

Silence reigns for a few moments, and Enjolras lets it settle, lets it saturate them, memories no doubt flitting around their minds, memories of these friends who can never be replaced, of these nearly holy bonds that cannot ever be severed, even in death.

"To our friends," Enjolras finally says, and everyone retrieves their glasses. "To everything they stood for, to everything they were…and to everyone they loved."

Everyone raises their glasses.

_Let the wine of friendship never run dry…_

* * *

The boys all go to bed early, exhausted from the emotional outpouring of the day; they'd shared stories for an hour before both Enjolras and Marius faltered and Combeferre ordered them back to their beds, but Valjean finds he cannot sleep, so he sits in his favorite chair by the parlor window that faces the street.

He doesn't tell the boys, doesn't tell Cosette, but he still doesn't feel safe here at the Rue Plumet, doesn't feel safe in Paris, won't feel safe until they are all tucked away outside Avignon at M. Gillenormand's expansive, unused home. The elderly man, so immensely grateful to for Valjean saving Marius' life, has been unceasingly helpful; his monarchist alliances are seemingly forgotten in the hope of protecting his grandson and his friends. Gillenormand's quite taken with Cosette, and Valjean's heard him teasing Marius about when he'll get around to proposing to the "sweetest, loveliest young woman he's ever met" though Valjean suspects Marius is waiting until he's fully recovered to come to him for permission, waiting until this precarious situation becomes even the tiniest bit more stable.

He hears three sets of footsteps approaching him and turns, seeing Cosette, Flora, and Adrienne taking chairs next to him.

"All is well?" he asks Cosette, taking her hand briefly in his. He's informed her that he told the boys the truth, and she's proud of him for that.

"They're all sleeping," she replies, squeezing his hand in return. "Peacefully, I hope."

"They aren't particularly adept at letting other people take care of them," Adrienne says with a tired chuckle. "Stubborn, the lot of them, my brother especially."

"I found Gavroche curled up next to Rene," Flora says with a small smile. "But I couldn't bear to move him. That little boy is capable of sleeping in the strangest places."

Valjean opens his mouth to respond when he spies two police officers from his gaze out the window, walking toward the home next door. He's up from the chair in an instant, and bidding the ladies to remain utterly silent, gestures for them to follow him. He opens the front door and moves silently into the garden, where all four of them hear the voices catching and floating on the air toward them.

"We were told you had a complaint Madame?" one officer says.

"Yes," the woman says, looking unsure but plowing ahead nevertheless. "I know there are wanted posters up for one of the rebel leaders, and just a few nights ago I saw my neighbor, Monsieur Fauchelevent, arrive with two carriages full of young men, two of whom looked they'd been shot. I…I thought I should report it."

The two officers share a glance, and Valjean thinks they've probably had other reports flowing in that were false alarms, but they can't help but take every report seriously. As far as Valjean can tell, the city's populace is torn in half by the recent rebellions; so many supported it and yet other still were firmly against it, yet none of the supporters had the courage to stir and join the students and workers who set up barricades all across the city. Valjean's breath nearly leaves him as Cosette takes his hand at the officers' next words.

"Thank you Madame," the second officer responds. "The hour is late now and we do not have the power of the suspended warrants in order to search the house, but our superior Inspector Javert, who is in charge of this case does, and we will get word to him in the morning."

The rest of conversation dies, Valjean's ears ringing so loudly he can hardly think.

_We will get word to him in the morning…_

"We must get out and start our journey to Avignon," he whispers urgently, turning to the three horror-struck women behind him. "We must get out tonight."

A/N: I apologize for the cliffhanger, please don't kill me. Be on the lookout for the next chapter!


	15. Escaping Paris

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! I am so, so profusely sorry for the week long delay with my update, I'm behind on just life in general; first I was home visiting family for Easter, and then came back home with what I thought was a cold but what I found out yesterday to be both a sinus infection AND a throat infection after my roommate dragged me to the doctor. That being said, this chapter was written under the influence of lots of decongestant, cough medicine, and antibiotics, so I do hope it's coherent. But thank you again for reading, following, and for all of your wonderful feedback, it is so appreciated! Enjoy, it's a long one!

Chapter 15: Escaping Paris

Hands shake Combeferre awake with gentle urgency, and he knows he can't have been asleep for more than an hour or so at best. He opens his eyes, vision bleary without his glasses, but he makes out Valjean's face, and it's pinched with anxiety.

"Monsieur Valjean?" he asks, confused. "What's going on?"

"My neighbors reported me to the police on suspicion of housing insurgents," Valjean says without hesitation. "I heard the officers say they would send Inspector Javert word in the morning, which means we have to leave here before daybreak. As soon as we can manage it."

Combeferre gapes at him for a moment, hating how lost for words he is, and immediately thinking "what would Enjolras do?" But even though Enjolras is slowly on the mend he's still ill, still very injured, and now Combeferre finds himself in the role of temporary chief when he'd much rather be a guide. He's used to laying out the choices before Enjolras, debating the pros and cons, and then Enjolras decides. Combeferre sees all sides of any decision, while Enjolras is able to act swiftly and yet still justly; that's why their friendship, their leadership, works so well together.

But now…

"Monsieur, moving Enjolras now, moving Marius," Combeferre begins, seeing flashes of Marius falling to the cobblestones when he was shot, flashes of Enjolras dragging Prouvaire's body toward the sewer, echoes of Enjolras' stifled screams when Doctor Figueron pulled the bullet out of his leg, overtaking his mind.

"I know," Valjean says, worry warping his voice. "I know, but if Inspector Javert comes here in the morning, he will arrest Enjolras for certain, could potentially arrest all of you. We don't…there isn't a choice, I'm afraid."

"No," Combeferre says, reaching for his glasses and slipping them on. "No I suppose there isn't. What do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to ride quickly to M. Gillenormand's and set up the stagecoaches, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and Gavroche are downstairs helping Toussaint pack, and Cosette is assisting Marius. I need you to tend to Enjolras, get him as ready as you can for this journey. I believe Grantaire is saying goodbye to Adrienne, at the moment, as she and Flora will not be going with us."

"Yes monsieur," Combeferre says, pulling a set of the new clothes Valjean procured for all of them out of the drawer, a wave of immense appreciation flooding him. "Thank you, thank you for everything."

Valjean looks at him for a moment placing a warm, encouraging hand on his shoulder.

"You're incredibly welcome, Combeferre," he says, affection in his voice. "At best I'm going to try and get us out of here in two hours, so I'd better go."

Combeferre nods, bidding Valjean goodbye and quickly getting dressed before heading down the hallway to Enjolras' room, stopping when he hears voices from the room next door. It's Grantaire and his sister, and Combeferre listens for a moment, waiting for the proper moment to enter.

"You must promise me you won't do anything rash Lucien," Adrienne says firmly, and through the crack he can see her hands on either side of Grantaire's head, her forehead resting lightly on his. "You must do as Monsieur Fauchelevent says, alright?"

"I will try," Grantaire replies, and Combeferre can practically hear the small grin no doubt playing at his lips. But then his voice lowers, a stream of fear, of sadness becoming prominent. "I only…I'm _afraid_, Adrienne. I'm so afraid of something happening to Enjolras, of something happening to any of them, I…they're all so fearless and I'm…"

His words cease, and Combeferre sees Adrienne lean in to embrace her brother in an almost motherly fashion.

_Oh Grantaire_, he wants to say_, if only you could know how frightened I am right now, frightened of all the same things you fear. _

He waits a beat and then knocks, moving into full view of the pair.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting," he says. "I only wanted to see if you could help me get Enjolras downstairs in a little while, Grantaire."

"Of course, yes," Grantaire says, and Combeferre notices just how tired his eyes are, the skin beneath them purpling by the day. "Whatever you need."

"I just need to wake him and check his bandages and then I'll come get you," Combeferre tells him, smiling at Adrienne. "You aren't coming with us?"

"It would be two more people to transport," Adrienne explains, wistful. "But we're both planning on making our way for a visit soon."

"I know we'll all be glad of that," Combeferre says. "Give me just a few minutes, Grantaire."

With that he continues down the hallway, the murmuring of Cosette and Marius floating into his ears as he walks past. He reaches Enjolras' room and hears Flora's voice and steps back, not wanting to interrupt a private moment.

"My boy," he hears her say to the still sleeping Enjolras. "My sweet, brave boy. I know…I know you had to fight for this, but I…I'm so afraid of losing you, I…" she stops, looking up, and Combeferre backs away further, but his steps creak on the floorboards.

"Combeferre?" Flora asks, leaning around and seeing him around the door. "Come in dear, it's alright."

"I'm sorry for disturbing you," he says, walking quietly into the room. "Monsieur Fauchelevent only asked me to wake Enjolras and get him ready for the journey."

"I know," she tells him, patting the chair next to her. "Sit for a moment."

He does, his eyes flitting to his sleeping friend who looks remotely peaceful in slumber for the first time since they escaped the barricade, and Combeferre hates to wake him.

"I heard you won't be traveling with us," he says, folding his hands and looking back up at her.

"This journey is complex enough without two more bodies to add," she replies. "But I will be there to visit as soon as I can finish up my business here in Paris; our family home is but a day's carriage ride from the countryside outside Avignon. And I will visit yours and Courfeyrac's parents on my way home."

"I do appreciate that," Combeferre tells her. "And Courfeyrac as well. We had Toussiant send them letters letting them know we were alive, but we couldn't give them any details at all, in case the letters got seized. Couldn't even include our names; we just have to hope they understood the message."

"If you don't mind my asking," she begins slowly. "Are your parents accepting of your politics, of your decisions? It's only so I know what sort of atmosphere I might enter and behave accordingly."

"My parents are accepting but not so much encouraging," he tells her. "They don't…understand me very well at all, always thought me strange, but they do love me. Courfeyrac's parents are much like, well your situation, really. Courfeyrac does speak to his father occasionally, though, unlike Enjolras, although his mother is a good deal meeker than you, if I may say so, Madame. Doesn't quite have the same courage. Courfeyrac is the black sheep of that family, I believe. In the best of ways."

She half smiles at his words, squeezing his hand for a moment, looking at him fondly before her face grows tense again.

"I know this is an unpredictable situation," she says, eyes moving again to her son. "But I want you boys to stay together. There's safety in that, security. You need each other."

"Yes," Combeferre agrees, remembering Enjolras' plea to protect the others if he's arrested, remembers the sleepless night that followed, because of course he wants to protect all of them, and that includes Enjolras himself. He only hopes he won't have to make the choice between keeping his promise to Enjolras and keeping him safe. Enjolras is self-sacrificing almost to a fault sometimes and he's told his friend as much, only to have Enjolras shoot the same words calmly back at him. Enjolras certainly isn't foolish; it's only that his natural reactions are for others rather than for himself, initially.

"Yes," he continues, meeting Flora's gaze. "We do need each other. We always have, but now especially."

_Protect_ _him_, he knows she wants to say, but they both also know that Enjolras, while always interested in expanding his mind, always interested in other people's opinions on important matters, will do as he sees fit in this situation because it's about protecting his friends.

"We will do everything in our power to keep each other safe," he finally says, because those are the only truthful words of comfort he can offer her.

"I know," she says sincerely, her voice almost vibrating with anticipated grief. She runs a hand through Enjolras' blond curls, placing a reverent kiss on his forehead.

"Rene," she says softly. "You've got to wake up now, alright? Combeferre has to get you ready for the journey."

Enjolras' eyes pop open in an instant as though his unconscious mind was ready for those very words. He pushes up against the pillows, and Combeferre doesn't miss the half-concealed gasp of pain.

"Journey?" he asks, looking from his mother to Combeferre. "What's happened?"

"The neighbors reported M. Fauchelevent on suspicion of housing insurgents," Combeferre says. "And we've got to get out of Paris tonight."

"Tonight," Enjolras repeats, processing the information as the sleep drifts away. "It's been reported to Javert?"

"It will be in the morning," Combeferre replies. "The officers said they'd send for him as soon as he got in, so we need to vacate this place as soon as we're able."

Enjolras nods, sensing the tension in Combeferre's demeanor. He turns to his mother, a question in his eyes.

"I get the feeling you aren't coming with us?" he asks, reaching for her hand.

"It would be two more people to transport," she tells him, taking the hand he offers and holding it to her heart. "And this is a complicated journey as it is. M. Fauchelevent told me that he's gone for stagecoaches and to speak to M. Gillenormand about using his drivers so that there won't be any questions, you'll have to find inns for lodging..." she trails off for a moment, then gets back to the point at hand. "But I'll come visit you as soon as possible."

"But do not put yourself in danger on my behalf," Enjolras says seriously, the lines in his forehead creasing.

"I will put myself in as much danger as I like on behalf on my child," she says firmly in response.

Enjolras raises his eyebrows and looks back at Combeferre, clearly looking for an ally.

"What she said," Combeferre responds, raising his hands playfully in defeat, feeling almost privileged to be a part of this private moment between mother and son. "I know better than to argue with a mother. Especially your mother, Enjolras."

Both smile at his words, but the amusement lasts only for a moment, the danger of the situation grabbing them by their collars and pulling them back into the present. Combeferre watches as Flora pulls Enjolras into a fierce embrace, tenderly avoiding his injured shoulder. She doesn't speak and neither does Enjolras, because there simply aren't any words. Combeferre watches Enjolras' face and even though his friend's eyes are closed, Combeferre sees the pain there, sees how much he hates causing his mother this intense distress.

But the cause he fights for is such an intrinsic part of his person, and Combeferre is certain Flora knows that, knows she's proud of her son, even if watching him suffer, watching him risk his life, tears her apart.

Flora pulls back, resting her hands on either side of Enjolras' face for just a moment, eyes searching his features as if trying to imprint this very moment into her mind permanently, as if she's memorizing the features she already knows so well.

"I'll let you do your work Combeferre," she says, finally rising from her place. "And I'll go downstairs to help the other boys and Toussaint pack up the necessities."

Enjolras watches her go, eyes following her until she's down the stairs and out of sight, before turning back to Combeferre, hands instantly moving to his injured leg.

"I think," he says, desperately trying to control the tremor of pain of in his voice. "I think I may have tossed in my sleep and caused a little bleeding…"

"Let me see," Combeferre says instantly, slightly annoyed that Enjolras hid this until his mother was out of the room, but also knowing his friend well enough to see he's not capable of doing otherwise.

He tosses the covers back, finding the white bandage splotched with red, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

"It's bleeding but it's not as terrible as it might have been, you just aggravated it in your sleep," Combeferre says, sending his friend a small smile. "I'll need to change this bandage though, and probably the one on your shoulder for good measure."

Enjolras takes the Laudanum without protest, and Combeferre suspects it's because his friend can sense how anxious he is, as well as how much physical distress this journey might cause him.

"Speak your mind Combeferre," Enjolras says after a few minutes as Combeferre ties off his leg bandage. "I can tell something's bothering you."

"I…" Combeferre says, still surprised even after all these years of friendship just how well Enjolras reads him. "I don't want to worry you Enjolras."

"If our positions were switched," Enjolras says evenly, shutting his eyes briefly against the pain while Combeferre makes quick work of his shoulder bandage. "You would find a way to make me tell you what was on my mind. I hardly have the energy to speak right now, so kindly don't make me think of ways to coax it out of you."

Combeferre sighs but can't help smiling tightly at his friend; Enjolras doesn't always speak up when he perceives things, but he does when they're important enough to be acknowledged.

"I wish we did not have to make this journey just yet," Combeferre admits. "I know we don't have a choice now, because if we risk staying Javert will find you, find all of us, and he'll drag you off to prison, and…"

Quite suddenly and without warning Combeferre finds he's rather lost control of his voice and it cracks most audibly as he flushes with embarrassment. Flashes of Enjolras standing defiantly before a firing squad, blonde hair sticking out from under the blindfold as the bullets pierce him and rivers of blood flow down his skin, images of chains locked around his friend's neck as he's sent to the galleys for life, despair gleaming in his eyes, rush through Combeferre's head like uncontrollable wildfire.

Combeferre swallows hard, desperately trying to regain control of his faculties and focusing on re-bandaging Enjolras' wound so that their hasty retreat won't aggravate it further. But just as his hand reaches to tie the last knot Enjolras seizes it, grasping firmly and looking him directly in the eyes with that intense, blazing gaze that so often takes others aback.

"Try not to worry, my friend," Enjolras says, his affection clear in his tone. "Let us just…let us just focus on the present and then think of the future once we are free of Paris."

These are strange words coming from someone who spends his life fighting for the beauty of the future, but Combeferre accepts them, squeezing Enjolras' hand in return. He calms at the familiar touch, but uneasiness still pricks at him; there's something in Enjolras' voice that he doesn't trust, something that tells him that should Javert find them, his friend will immediately throw himself into the fire to save the rest of them, to keep any of them from fighting against Javert to prevent his arrest.

Combeferre finishes tying off the bandage, but before he can express his thoughts further Grantaire arrives to help Enjolras down the stairs. Doctor Figueron left a cane for Enjolras' use, and their injured leader leans the full weight of his good side on the cane while Grantaire wraps an arm around his waist, keeping almost all the weight off his bad leg. Enjolras is panting heavily by the time they reach the bottom, and Grantaire helps him to the nearest chair to wait for Valjean.

"I've got you," Combeferre hears Grantaire say quietly. "Just hold steady."

"I don't care what you say, Enjolras," Courfeyrac says with the uncharacteristic air of a lecture in his voice as he darts toward them from fussing over Marius to help Grantaire settle Enjolras in the chair. "You aren't walking to the carriage; one of us will carry you."

"Seconded," Grantaire adds.

For once, much to Combeferre's astonishment, Enjolras doesn't argue but merely nods, leaning heavily against the back of the chair and shooting a glance at Marius.

"Are you doing alright Marius?" Enjolras asks their friend, worry sparking in his blue eyes as Courfeyrac affectionately smoothes back stray strands of blonde hair from his face.

"I've had better nights," Marius half jokes from his place next to Cosette, who has a tender arm wrapped around his shoulder.

Marius has told them he wants to propose as soon as he can find the right moment to ask Valjean's permission, but amidst everything, the correct moment obviously hasn't arisen. Marius had also joked that he'd rather wait until he's healed so that he can get down properly on one knee without feeling like he might pass out. Life is strange, Combeferre muses, that love might be found right alongside such tragedy. He'd been nearly as frustrated and bewildered as Enjolas when Marius strode into the café proclaiming that he'd fallen in love shortly before the barricade, but now…now seeing this bit of light amongst the darkness makes joy bubble up within him.

"I…I shall be glad when we reach Avignon," Marius continues. "The fresh air will be good for the both of us, I should think."

Combeferre is about to agree when a flurry of activity bursts around them; Toussaint emerges with Feuilly, Flora, Gavroche, and Adrienne, each carrying at least one bag, and then Valjean strides through the front door, looking frazzled but focused, with M. Gillenormand in tow.

"We must go," he says the moment he crosses the threshold, and for the first time Combeferre finds him almost intimidating. "We must go now. M. Gillenormand and I saw several police officers near here and I don't want to risk anything. We have two stagecoaches outside and M. Gillenormand has been kind enough to supply us with trustworthy drivers in his employ. Come, we need to get Marius and Enjolras settled in. Quickly."

No one argues, no one says a word, and after a few minutes the stagecoaches are loaded up, bags and all; Enjolras, Combeferre, Marius and Cosette ride in the first one, while Valjean sits with the driver; Toussaint, Grantaire, Feuilly, Gavroche, and Courfeyrac ride in the second. Combeferre watches from the window while Adrienne reaches into the second carriage and hugs Grantaire firmly, saying something he cannot hear. M. Gillenormand whispers to Marius from the other side of their carriage, promising him that as soon as he can prepare, he too, will make the journey to Avignon.

Then Combeferre hears Flora's voice at their door, and he turns to face her; Enjolras' head rests on Combeferre's legs in order that he can stretch out across the seat, and Flora reaches for her son's hand.

"Do as M. Fauchelevent tells you," she says, not hiding the plea in her voice. "He is a good man, and he will take care of you. I love you, Rene."

"I love you too," Enjolras responds, and Combeferre hears the slightest waver in his voice. "Be safe yourself, please."

"All of you be safe," she answers, looking at each of them in turn.

With that she tears herself away, and Combeferre hears Valjean promise her once again that he'll keep them safe. And then the door is closed, cloaking them in darkness as they ride off into the night, the six day journey to Avignon rolling out before them.

_Goodbye, Paris_, Combeferre thinks silently to himself. _I don't know when I shall see you again. _

* * *

Javert receives the officers' report from the Rue Plumet nearly the minute he walks in the door of the station at the shift change.

Or course Valjean has another home in Paris.

Of _course_.

He feels his eyes twitching, feels the blood boiling beneath his skin so hot he fears it might just melt off and pool around him on the floor. Valjean's face flashes in front of him; first he sees the angry convict on the day of his release, hatred creased into his skin, then he sees the friendly face of Monsieur Madeline, sees him holding the dead prostitute Fantine as she dies, sees his determination and frustration and forgivness when he spared him at the barricade, sees his skin streaked with sewer filth, desperate to rescue the Pontmercy boy. He sees Cosette next, a young woman so concerned for the fate of a stranger, concerned for a man who, unbeknownst to her, has been chasing her adopted father for near on twenty years. Then Javert sees Enjolras standing at the top of the barricade, almost frightfully passionate, sees the fury in his blue eyes as he directs his lieutenants to send him into the tavern, feels his head throb with thunderous pain when Enjolras brings his own truncheon down on him while he tries to escape.

"Betrand!" he calls without warning. "Hail a fiacre and retrieve Allard and Favreau. We're going to the Rue Plumet, there's been a report of a…" he stops, keeping the name to himself. "…a man possibly housing Enjolras and his surviving lieutenants."

Betrand does as requested and within twenty minutes they've arrived at a quaint but spacious home on what appears a quiet street.

"Allard, Favreau, go and speak to the reporting neighbors," he barks, heart pounding with every step. He does not want to set eyes on Valjean, does not want to see the man who is responsible for breaking every code he's ever set for himself, every moral line he's ever drawn, and yet he has to arrest Enjolras, has to obey the _law_.

_So you were obeying the law when you let Valjean go willingly, were you?_ that nasty voice asks from the back of his head. _With another insurgent no less?_

_I've been told to arrest the leader only, that arresting Enjolras and making an example of him will quell the rebellious spirit of his friends and limit more bloodshed, just as it surely did with the other leader Inspector Ancel found, so letting Pontmercy go is no matter, _he internally shoots back. _And Valjean…Valjean…I cannot…_

He shakes his head, ridding himself of the internal monologue.

"Inspector?" he hears Betrand ask. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he says calmly, not looking at his underling. "Let's go. Try the door."

He does, and it's locked, of course.

"Police!" Javert half shouts, half growls. "Open this door at once!"

Nothing.

Not a damn sound.

"Police!" he calls again.

Still nothing.

He makes quick work of the door just as the other two officers make their way over, and they all follow him inside.

"They say they didn't hear any commotion last night monsieur," Allard says, almost looking a bit afraid of his superior. "But it looks like they're…"

"Vanished?" Javert snaps. "Yes, it does."

At the unnerved look all three give him, Javert realizes he's cracking in front of them, and he will not have that under any circumstance.

No.

He has a job to do.

"Search the house," he tells them, reverting back to his professional demeanor. "Search everywhere, look for anything. What is the name of the man who owns this house? Did they say?"

"A Monsieur Fauchelevent," Favreau replies. "And his daughter."

The man Valjean rescued from under the fallen cart.

Of course.

"Does that name mean anything to you monsieur?" Betrand asks.

"No," Javert lies, hating himself for it instantly. "I've never heard it before."

Valjean took that name as his own when Madeline would no longer work after the debacle in Arras, and Javert wonders just how many names the man's taken in his time on the run. He hears Allard and Favreau moving around upstairs, hears Bertrand searching the kitchen and the dining area, so Javert takes it upon himself to search the parlor; the house looks lived in, a contrast from the sparseness of the other residence. Valjean is careful, but it's obvious they left in a hurry because they weren't given any other choice; blankets hang over the backs of chairs, five recently used candles rest on the mantle, and a roll of emerald green ribbon rests on the table, no doubt belonging to Cosette.

"There's no sign of anyone Inspector," Allard says, striding back into the room. "They've really are gone."

"We will place someone on watch here for a few nights in case they decide to return here," Javert says, even though he knows they will not; Valjean is too prudent and too paranoid, Enjolras' face is plastered across Paris, and Javert knows that some of the lieutenants are on watch lists. No, Paris is far too dangerous now.

Javert places Allard on watch nonetheless, and heads back to the station with Bertrand and Favreau. Prefect Gerard is not yet in to report to, so Javert enters his office once more, locking the door behind him. The wanted poster of Enjolras mocks him from its place on his desk, and Javert feels rage build to such an uncontrollable point that he seizes the paper and rips it in half, rips it into dozens of tiny slips of paper and throws them at the opposite wall.

He _just _missed them.

He breathes heavily, the warmth of the June day seeping in through the window and choking him with sweaty hands. Damn Valjean, damn him, that hellish angel of mercy who has ruined everything and yet whom he cannot punish.

He stares at the bagged red jacket sitting in the corner chair, dark with dried blood.

But he can punish that wretched boy, that boy who thinks fighting for the poor will make them any different, who seeks to change the very governance of their nation. But Javert knows better, Javert knows that only one's own determination can pull oneself up from the gutter; his mother was a gypsy and his father was a thief, and yet Javert did not ask for anyone's help, did not ask to change the face of France to some sort of fictional, glorious republic where all citizens are free. Such idealism, such freedom, is a dangerous notion…

Enjolras' face morphs into Valjean's and back again, one set of eyes drenched with mercy but wet with sadness, the second on fire with all the injustice and suffering of a nation.

He shakes his head again, pounding his clenched fist onto his desk, ignoring how much it throbs.

He doesn't know how.

He doesn't know when.

But he will find where Valjean is hiding that schoolboy, and then his world will be set right again.


	16. A Journey

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hi all, sorry for the little delay on this chapter, life has been hectic the past couple of weeks what with sickness and some family things going on. We don't check in with Javert in this chapter, but we shall in the next! But I do hope you enjoy this! Also, I am dedicating the Courfeyrac bits of this chapter to Chaos in Her Wake (who said she would love to see more Courf), and who is always willing to listen to my ramblings about this story, and is just generally awesome. Thank you so much to all of you for reading, for following, and for all of the incredible feedback you've given me, it is so appreciated!

Chapter 16: A Journey

Later, Enjolras will tell his friends that he doesn't remember very much about their six day journey to Avignon, doesn't remember very much other than brief flashes of conversation, the stage coaches traveling as rapidly as possible, flying away from Paris, from the inspector and the government who hunt them, sensations of stabbing pain when the coach jolts, bleary images of nights spent in small inn rooms and Valjean's anxious, worried whispers.

He wakes up in one such inn on the final night of their journey from a dream he can't piece together, opening his eyes and seeing Courfeyrac's slightly worried smile greeting him.

"Hello there," Courfeyrac says, helping him sit up and almost absentmindedly smoothing back Enjolras' golden curls from his face.

"Where are we?" Enjolras asks, taking the glass of water Courfeyrac hands him; it was a great deal safer, he knew, to drink water in the countryside rather than in Paris, where it was so often polluted.

"We are roughly thirty kilometers outside Avignon," Courfeyrac tells him. "In a small village called Pernes-les-Fontaines. M. Gillenormand's home is about two kilometers outside the city proper, according to Marius, so we will be there sometime tomorrow afternoon."

Enjolras nods, gazing at the room around him. Marius sleeps soundly on his back in the bed on his left, auburn hair sweeping across his forehead, freckles more distinct against his paler-than-usual skin. Combeferre sleeps in the bed to his right, dark brown hair sticking up everywhere, his form splayed out to the left side because Courfeyrac, Enjolras assumes, had previously been asleep next to him. Grantaire and Feuilly share the last bed, Feuilly with one knee pressed against his chest, Grantaire flat on his stomach, his near-black curls a wild tangle, Gavroche curled up in a ball at the footboard.

"Valjean and Cosette are in the room next door," Courfeyrac tells him, watching Enjolras intently. "Though I suspect Valjean is one of those men who gets by on very little sleep. Rather like you," he teases lightly.

"And just what are you doing awake, exactly?" Enjolras shoots back, raising a single eyebrow.

"Couldn't sleep all that well," Courfeyrac answers, glancing at his vacated spot in the bed.

Courfeyrac offers up his usual grin, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes the way it normally does, doesn't prick the green irises with little balls of light in the way to which Enjolras is accustomed.

"Are you worried about something?" Enjolras asks, searching Courfeyrac's face for signs of something he can't quite name.

"Me?" Courfeyrac says, laughing, and again it sounds abnormal, less animated. "I don't worry, Enjolras, that's Combeferre's particular talent, I…"

"Courfeyrac," Enjolras interrupts, the soft whisper of an order in his voice.

"What?" Courfeyrac asks, still holding on to that façade of a smile.

"I have known you for a significant handful of years now," Enjolras continues. "I have known you since my first months in Paris when we were eighteen; we are now both around twenty-five, and if you think I cannot note a difference in the way you smile, the way you laugh, both of which are so inherent to your personality, then you are mistaken."

"You grow more perceptive by the year," Courfeyrac observes, the smile reaching his eyes now, if only for a moment. "That, and you spend far too much time with Combeferre."

"I still don't hear you telling me what's the matter," Enjolras says, but he's gentle. "Normally I would try not to press, but under the circumstances…"

"I just had a dream," Courfeyrac says, cutting off Enjolras' stream of words. "A nightmare, I suppose. I'm not prone to them, so I admit: it shook me up a bit. So I decided to pass the time and sit with you."

Something like relief floods through Enjolras, mixed with a very powerful sense of empathy. He's been struggling with nightmares since Valjean rescued them from the barricade, and he holds onto the pleasant dream he had in Paris like a lifeline, imprinting the images of his deceased friends' faces on his brain, their smiles and their affection rather than the nightmarish specters he's seen so many times.

"I'm so sorry Courfeyrac," Enjolras says, pressing his friend's always warm hand and holding tight.

Courfeyrac squeezes his hand in return, eyes falling briefly to the floor before looking back up again. "I was at the barricade again, but I…I was alone there. I searched everywhere for all of you and couldn't find you, not until I saw your…your bodies in the café, all lined up together, and the National Guard, they wouldn't shoot me. They said being without my friends was enough punishment…" he trails off, and Enjolras feels his heart tremble at seeing the tears in Courfeyrac's eyes, in eyes that so often are dancing waltzes with mirth and with passion.

Pain sweeps through his body, but Enjolras moves over in the rather roomy inn bed, making room for Courfeyrac.

"No," Courfeyrac says. "You're injured, Enjolras, don't be silly, I could move the wrong way and hurt you. I'm fine sharing with Combeferre, these beds are large."

"If you do I'll let you know," Enjolras says simply.

Courfeyrac smiles slightly again and obliges, sliding into the bed beside Enjolras; Courfeyrac's always been tactile, has always been comforted by touch, something Enjolras knows well, and so hopes his presence will help his friend fall back asleep without falling victim to another nightmare. Courfeyrac's head rests lightly on Enjolras' good shoulder, the mop of fashionably cut brown curls brushing his cheek, and Courfeyrac releases a sigh, his posture visibly relaxing.

"I miss them so much," Courfeyrac says quietly. "I miss endless games of dominoes with Bahorel and his rumbling laugh, I miss Bossuet's quips and his cheerfulness, I miss Jehan enthusiastically telling me about a new poem he'd written, the way he blushed when he was shy, I miss Joly's incessant worrying over catching some disease and then laughing when he realized how ridiculous he was being. Sometimes in all the insanity, all the hectic rushing about and keeping safe from the police I can put it to the back of my mind out of necessity so I can focus, but when the quiet comes, when sleep comes, I find I cannot. Sometimes it seems like it's been a long time, but then it comes back with a crashing realization that it's only been two weeks. That they won't walk through the door."

"I know," Enjolras agrees. "I often feel that way. I wish I could say something to make your pain, to make all of our pain, dim, but I know there is nothing that can do such a thing. Only time will do that, but we will miss them forever. That isn't something that will ever leave us."

"No," Courfeyrac replies. "But delaying our grief looking for ways to dim it will only make it worse in the long run, and we don't need to add more problems to our stockpile. We have to feel what we feel properly, or as properly as anything like this can be, I suppose."

"Grief isn't a simplistic process," Enjolras answers, the warmth radiating off Courfeyrac's body making him drowsy once more. "And we…we are missing pieces of ourselves, pieces we cannot replace. Even Combeferre would tell us that there is not a book to help solve this particular problem."

Courfeyrac goes silent for a few moments, his eyes falling closed, and Enjolras believes he's fallen asleep until his voice fills the air once more.

"What was that you said the barricade?" Courfeyrac muses. " '_Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are the terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll… This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn_'."

"You have a good memory," Enjolras says, surprised Courfeyrac remembers so well.

"It was one of your better speeches," Courfeyrac says, the breath of a chuckle in his tone.

"So you're saying you don't usually like them?" Enjolras asks, unable to stop a small laugh from escaping, because Courfeyrac can always make him see humor, can always diffuse a tense situation with a joke or a pun, just understand people and how they work so incredibly well.

"Of course not, you're nearly poetic with your words. You're just a bit long-winded, sometimes, a bit lofty for us mere mortals," he says, that familiar glint of glee in his eyes again. He stops, growing serious. "But those words…_'a tomb all flooded with the dawn'_…it helps me remember that our friends died _for_ something, that someday their sacrifices will lead to the new world we all dreamt of together. That does comfort me, somewhat, in the worst moments. That, and having the rest of you still here with me."

"I will not let their sacrifices be in vain," Enjolras says, a fierce intensity in his tone. "None of us will allow it; I know I cannot."

"And none of us will allow anything to happen to you," Courfeyrac adds, his voice growing heavier with exhaustion. "You know that, right?"

"Yes," Enjolras answers, eyes flitting over to Combeferre, whose eyes are still closed, but Enjolras can tell by his posture that he's awoken; he's seen his friend fall asleep with his books enough times to know the difference. Their conversation of a few days ago rings in his mind.

_If something happens to me, I need you to protect the others. I didn't want to ask you. I didn't want to burden you, but it is five lives versus one. There is no need for all of you…_

_I will protect the others, I promise you. But if you think that means I will not also attempt to protect you, then you are mistaken._

"Inspector Javert will not get his hands on you," Courfeyrac says, his eyes fluttering closed, but he still keeps speaking, a marked fervor in his voice. "Because we are in this together; it's all of us or none of us. So no plans to hand yourself over or anything of that nature if he finds us, alright?"

Courfeyrac's words strike Enjolras directly in the chest like a physical blow; Courfeyrac knows him so well. Flashes of Javert bursting through the door, the others standing up against him, Javert handcuffing them and dragging them off, broken, defeated, and hopeless, sear his mind.

He _cannot_ let that happen. He will offer himself up to prevent it, if Javert finds them, will go to prison; he does not wish to die, of course, because few human beings do, but he will sacrifice himself if necessary.

Even if he cannot live to continue on with their cause, he will give his remaining friends their chance to fight on, to keep that spark they all lit together burning, to see that future all flooded with light that he believes in, that he fights for with every fiber of his soul, that future of freedom, that future of children dancing happily in the streets rather than begging for food or dying of Cholera because they cannot afford medication, that future where women do not have to throw themselves into prostitution because they have no other choice, that future where the people, rather than a monarch, have the say in how they are governed.

He doesn't know how to respond to his friend, but turns to find he's been relieved of that task; Courfeyrac is already asleep. He brushes a hand against his friend's cheek, smiling ever so slightly at Courfeyrac's peaceful expression.

But Enjolras still feels a bit like he's lied and he's never been dishonest with his friends.

And he hates it, because he loves his friends far too much to be easy with keeping something from them.

He's never doubted who he is, has never doubted what's important to him and never will, but doing something so uncharacteristic feels like a betrayal to himself, like a betrayal against his own intrinsic nature. He'd known that if he survived the barricade his life would change forever, but even with all of their planning, with all of their preparation and maturity… it still couldn't have been possible for them to predict this particular circumstance. He knows it will hurt all of them irrevocably if something happens to him, and that's the last thing he wants, but he also knows he'd rather them live with that hurt than be arrested or killed. He closes his eyes briefly, silently praying that Javert will simply lose their trail and they will figure out how to live their lives anew, even if that means changing their names, changing locations every once in a while.

A swell of unchecked emotion rushes through him, hot and unyielding. He glances over, meeting Combeferre's now open eyes, which gleam with worry and bright compassion.

_We will figure this out_, his friend's glance seems to say. _Maintain that eternal hope that is such an integral part of you._

Enjolras smiles silently at Combeferre and Combeferre returns the smile.

Then they both fall back into slumber, joining their friends in the world of dreams.

* * *

They reach Avignon safely and without incident the next afternoon, and Madame Bellard, the housekeeper, greets them jovially, moving to hug Marius rather enthusiastically; he'd told them he spent summers in this house as a child. Enjolras can tell Valjean's spirits have lifted just in the way he holds himself, in the reduction of the bags under his eyes the next morning after he'd had what is clearly the first full night's sleep in their entire journey, perhaps ever since the night of the barricade.

The next afternoon, Combeferre, Feuilly, and Grantaire sit with Enjolras; Gavroche has dragged Cosette off to the grounds in search of the cat Madame Bellard told him about, and Valjean has traveled to Avignon with Toussaint to pick up some necessities, and, Enjolras suspects, to get a feeling for the atmosphere. The chateau is expansive, large enough for all of them to have their own sleeping quarters, and it feels hidden enough that Enjolras feels almost tucked away from the world, though Avignon is only two kilometers down the road.

"Marius seems both comfortable and uncomfortable here at the same time," Feuilly remarks, still slightly in awe of the home's size, his eyes constantly catching on something new. "Almost as if he's…I want to say ashamed?"

"The home is familiar to him," Combeferre muses. "And that's comforting, but he also was estranged from his grandfather over politics yes, but politics that stem from the privilege of the bourgeoisie, and this house is a reminder of that."

"And to think this house is now housing a group of Republican rebels," Grantaire says. "Ironic."

"We cannot help what we are born into," Enjolras replies, thinking of his own parents, who, though not as expansively rich as the Gillenormands, are still wealthy in their own right. "Rather it matters what we do with our lives. And M. Gillenormand's decision to embrace Marius, to embrace Marius' friends, his immense help in protecting us…that's something I'm thankful for. It started out of love for his grandson, but it grew into what almost seems like respect for our willingness to fight for our cause, even if he doesn't understand the cause itself."

There's a slight knock on the door, and they all turn to see Marius himself standing awkwardly in the doorway, a smile tugging at his lips, Courfeyrac behind him with a rather cat-like grin on his countenance.

"Courfeyrac," Combeferre chides, sliding his glasses down his nose and looking at his friend. "What did I say about dragging Marius out of bed? He needs rest. That was a very long journey for all of us, let alone our two injured parties."

"But our dear Marius has news to share!" Courfeyrac exclaims, the enthusiasm bursting forth in a radiant grin that Enjolras is pleased to see return.

"What's the news?" Feuilly asks, the excitement clearly contagious.

Courfeyrac looks about to elbow Marius in the ribs, thinks better of it given Marius' abdomen injury, settling for nodding eagerly.

"I'm going to ask Valjean for his permission to propose to Cosette," Marius says, his smile spreading slowly, almost dreamily across his face. "As soon as we are completely settled here, so in a few days time. In light of everything, in light of our friends…" his smile falters slightly, and he halts for a moment, eyes casting down before looking back up at each of them in turn. "I've learned these past weeks that life is not something I can take for granted, and I just feel there is not time to waste."

"See, Combeferre?" Courfeyrac teases merrily. "I told you I had a good reason for pulling him out of bed."

There is a round of robust congratulations, and Enjolras senses Marius' eyes on him while Grantaire pats the soon to be groom heartily on the back, no doubt remembering Enjolras' frustration with him in the cafe.

_Marius, you're no longer a child. I do not doubt you mean it well. But now there is a higher call. Who cares about your lonely soul? We strive toward a larger goal…_

Enjolras doesn't have personal knowledge of the ins and outs of romantic attachment in particular, but he very much appreciates all forms of love in a world that sorely needs more of that wonderful virtue. He'd chastised Marius then because he needed him to focus, needed them all to focus on the task at hand, to fight for the future they all so longed for, that future where there would be love for all and not just some, because that was more important than anything and the time was at hand: but also because he didn't want Marius' distraction putting him or anyone else in danger when it came time to fight. But now the circumstance is drastically different; the future they fought for, the future they will always fight for, was made for people's happiness, and Marius and Cosette are clearly happy. Enjolras doesn't know the entirety of Cosette's story, but he senses that she was exactly the kind of child their cause embodies, the child of an absent biological father, of a struggling, desperate mother who died from terrible conditions and circumstance because there was no way out. And yet she is a truly impressive, generous young woman. His mind flashes back to the barricade, to his own words:

_It is a poor moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I pronounce it, and I glorify it. Love, you have a future_…_In the future, no one shall kill another, the earth will be radiant, mankind will love. It will come, citizens, the day where everything is concord, harmony, light, joy, and life, it will come._

"Congratulations my friend," Enjolras says, clasping Marius' shoulder. "I am pleased for you. And for Cosette."

Marius smiles wider, returning Enjolras' gesture.

"How are you going to get down on one knee with that injury, Marius?" Feuilly asks.

"He's not," Combeferre answers. "There are other ways, I'm certain, to propose."

This comment starts a debate on the various ways a man might propose, until Grantaire breaks it up with a loud proclamation.

"So!" he says, a smirkish grin on his face. "Drinks all around then? To Marius being in love at last?"

And at that, even Enjolras has to laugh.


	17. Of Trails and Bonding

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

Men of Mercy

A/N: Hello all! Thank you so much again for all your reading/following and your seriously wonderful feedback, all of you are fantastic! A note here about the mixed-verse I'm working with: I know in the Brick Madame Hucheloup is the proprietor of the Corinth, which is also where they set up the barricade, but as I set the barricade at the Musain here (as in the musical/film), and as the film had who I assumed was meant to be a version of Madame Hucheloup at the Musain, I am using that idea here. Also, my mention of the two revolutionaries in this chapter are actual historical names from the actual June Rebellion, hurray for historical context! I hope that's not confusing and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 17: Of Trails and Bonding

Javert finds himself walking the significant distance from the station and toward the Café Musain; the officers are abuzz while awaiting news of the trial of rebel leader Charles Jeanne, and Javert was so nettled he simply seized his jacket and walked out without a word. Inspector Ancel, who found Jeanne, has been hailed as a hero amongst their fellow officers, and Javert tires of watching the man swagger around and shoot condescending looks in his direction.

"Still haven't found Enjolras then, Javert?" he'd asked not half an hour ago.

"I haven't happened to accidentally stumble across him, no," Javert answered, keeping his irritation in check. "Though I'll be absolutely sure to let you know if I do."

"From what I've heard tell you've missed him twice now," Ancel continued, palms flat on Javert's desk. "Shame."

"Unless you've got anything to add to my case, Ancel," Javert snapped, never lifting his eyes from the papers in front him. "Then do leave my office."

With Jeanne's trial ongoing, and the trial of another rebel, Michael Geoffroy, on the horizon, Javert feels the pressure to find Enjolras growing more with each passing day. He stalks down the cobblestone streets, the thump of his boots hitting the ground echoing in his ears. Before he quite realizes it, he's arrived at the site of the barricade, the near-ruined café standing in front of him.

But something's changed since he was last here; yes, the blood has been cleaned from the stones and the café is still surrounded by bullet splintered wood, but now there are also drawings tacked to the front wall of the establishment, a French flag hanging in the window, tattered but still flying. Javert steps closer to one of the amateur drawings, eyes widening when he sees it's a sketch that strikingly resembles several of the boys he remembers seeing that night, proudly holding up a red flag.

This is a tribute to these boys, to these students and workers from the people of Saint-Michel, from the residents of this particular slum of Paris. He wonders if there are similar tributes where the Saint-Merry barricade fell, where any of them fell.

So _now_ the people of Paris rise. He cannot help but wonder why they did not rise during the insurrection when they have done so countless times in the past, wonders what was different this time around when there is so much unrest in the streets.

"I come here and find more of those every day," a female voice says from behind. "I suppose you'll want to arrest me for keeping them up there, monsieur, because I'm guessing art is now illegal also?"

Javert spins around to see who he assumes is the owner of the café standing by the door, a kerchief tied around her head and an apron around her waist, a frown set into her features.

"Are you the owner of the Café Musain?" Javert asks abruptly. "A Madame Hucheloup?"

"Who are you to ask?" she demands, not giving him an inch.

"Inspector Javert of the Paris Police," Javert bites back, his voice almost a snarl. "And I'm searching for Rene Enjolras, the leader of the group of rebels who set up the barricade in front of your café. Do you know him?"

"Lots of people come into my café monsieur," she says. "Or at least they did before I had to close down to fix it back up again. I can't be responsible for knowing all of their names."

"Do not lie to me," Javert warns, stepping closer, feeling that all too familiar rage and confusion of the past two weeks bubbling so close beneath the surface and threatening to spew forth. "Those boys set up the barricade here for a reason; I suspect this is one of the places where they held their illicit meetings."

"I can't police what people get up to in the upstairs room of my café," Madame Hucheloup evades again, but her voice softens ever so slightly. "What would it matter if I did know him? Knew any of them? All those boys are dead."

"No," Javert answers. "Enjolras was missing from the bodies. Likely along with some of his lieutenants."

She tries to hold back her relief, but she's an aging woman and her expression gives her away immediately, the way her eyes grow less dull, the way her lips turn ever so slightly upward.

"Have they contacted you?" Javert persists, and he feels himself losing control, feels himself losing his professional calm. "Did you help them escape?"

"No, Inspector Javert," she says, but she's staring him down with defiance in her eyes. "I only wish I could say I did."

"I could charge you with assisting traitors with words such as those," he says, leaning in close to her face.

"For what?" she asks him, her tone calm, but there is a flicker of fear in her eyes. "For saying I _wished_ I could have helped them?"

Javert is very near to pulling out his handcuffs when a younger man steps out, eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment and concern.

"Maman what's going on?" he asks, coming and standing firmly by her side.

"Inspector Javert wants to know if we helped any rebels who built the barricade here escape," she says, but her gaze never leaves Javert's face.

"We don't know anything about any escapees," the young man says, clearly desperate to keep his spitfire of a mother out of trouble with the law. "Please, we're trying to rebuild this café and get back to business before we lose any more money. We have to eat too, inspector."

Javert glances at the young man, then back at the woman in front of him, whose glare is unceasing.

"This is your warning," he says to her, turning sharply on his heel. "If I hear one word, one whisper about you helping Enjolras escape, I shall return."

With that he strides away, leaving the ghosts of the barricade, leaving the drawings and the flag and the echoing laughter of passionate young men struck down upon these stones for their ideals, behind him.

He swears he can almost hear wine glasses clinking against each other, can hear fervent shouts of "Vive la France!" and "Vive la Republique!" reaching his ears and burning his brain. He shakes his head, willing the spectral voices away

_You don't fear never finding Enjolras and his lieutenants_, the silky, poisonous voice of his own inner demons whispers. _What you fear is once again chasing a man who has done wrong in the eyes of the law, but who has done right by mankind. _

"No," Javert says resolutely to himself. "No."

Valjean was a _convict_. A _thief. _A_ liar._

_And a saint._

Enjolras was a _traitor_. A _rabble-rouser. _A _rebel._

_And a solider fighting for a better world._

But there is _not _a better world, Javert tells himself. And this boy and those who fight alongside him only cause further unrest in a city, in a country, rampant with it. There must be _order_ and _law_ and _rules_.

Never revolution, because Javert's seen very well in his lifetime the chaos that revolution has wrought upon France' he grew up amongst the bloody days of the French Revolution, saw Napoleon rise and fall, saw the return of the monarchy with Charles X, then saw him overthrown as a consequence of the 1830 revolt, saw Louis-Phillipe then seize the throne.

Valjean and his damned _mercy _and his _existence_ have already sent Javert's very foundation spinning, crumbling, breaking, has injected his life with irreversible shades of grey…but these rebels threaten the very functioning of the physical country around him.

_Freedom_.

_Republic_.

_Equality._

It's lies, all of it.

He remembers Valjean's filth covered face, remembers recognizing the Pontmercy boy resting heavily upon the ex-convict's shoulders, an idea sparking in his mind upon arrival at the station.

"Bertrand!" he calls spotting the younger officer loitering outside his office, the Republican watch lists Javert requested earlier in his hands, one for students, one for workers.

"Yes Inspector?" Bertrand asks. "Did you find out anything at the Musain?"

"No, unfortunately," Javert says, pulling out keys to unlock his door. "But I've had an idea. One of the rebels…Pontmercy is the name. I need you to find records of who his relations are so we can question them, then find property records of said relations, and bring them to me. This Fauchelevent, he might have worked with one of Pontmercy's relations and found a safe-house outside of Paris."

"Yes monsieur," Bertrand says, with a nod of his head, hesitating a little before going.

"What is it?" Javert asks, trying to maintain his patience, patience that wanes with every moment.

"How do you know this Pontmercy boy is still alive, monsieur?" Bertrand asks.

"I don't," Javert lies, looking his underling right in the eyes as he does, that familiar sensation of self-loathing burning like acid up his throat.

He doesn't even know who he _is_ anymore, only what he must _do_.

"I remembered his name and face from a previous encounter when I saw him at the barricade," Javert continues, thinking of the Thenardier fiasco at the Gorbeau House. "And it's the only name I can remember, at present, and so therefore the only relations we can question, until I pursue these lists you've brought me. Enjolras will not have been foolish enough to go home to his own family, although if it comes to it we will check that also. Now go, and quickly."

Betrand goes with a nod, and Javert returns to his desk, heart pounding beneath his skin.

This could be it: this could be the trail he needs to follow.

But he sits down with the watch lists nevertheless, perusing them for names he might remember from the barricade; he might not know all their names, but their faces, their voices, are so very fresh in his mind. The voice of the well-known gamin, Gavroche, rings in his head:

_Good evening dear inspector, lovely evening my dear. I know this man my friends his name's Inspector Javert. So don't believe a word he says 'cause none of it's true…_

Javert tries pushing the image out the boy out of his head, because it only reminds him of himself, only reminds him that he too, was once not much more than another gamin on the streets, because sometimes staying on the street was better than spending an inordinate amount of time with his fraud of a fortune-telling mother or his convict, galley-slave father. But the voices of Gavroche's revolutionary mentors only grow louder, joining in:

_Bravo little Gavroche, you're the top of the class!_

_So what are we gonna do with this snake in the grass?_

_Take this man and throw him in the tavern in there, the people will decide your fate, Inspector Javert!_

_Take the bastard now and shoot him!_

_Let us watch the devil dance!_

_You'd have done the same inspector, if we'd let you have your chance!_

_Though we may not all survive here, there are things that never die!_

Things that never die…

Javert leans closer to the papers and ignores the voices of Gavroche, of Enjolras and his lieutenants, of Valjean, of his own inner demons, but Valjean and Enjolras' faces meld together once again in his mind until he cannot decipher one from the other.

* * *

Three days after their arrival, another journey into Avignon becomes necessary: Cosette joked with her father that he was only used to sending Toussaint to procure food for three, not ten. In order to carry as much as possible and load it into the carriage, Valjean takes Toussaint, Courfeyrac, Grantaire, and Combeferre with him, leaving Madame Bellard to watch the house. Cosette elects to stay behind with Marius, and she doesn't miss Combeferre whispering in Feuilly's ear to please watch Enjolras, who grows antsier by the day, tired of being confined to bed. Gavroche stays behind as well, choosing to pass the time sitting with Feuilly and Enjolras.

Marius, worn out from the long journey because of his injuries, falls asleep mere minutes after Cosette starts reading verses of Wordsworth's "Lyrical Ballads" to him, lids fluttering closed slowly, grey-green eyes hidden from view. She rises from her chair, brushing the pad of her thumb lightly over the spattering of freckles running across his nose, kissing his forehead before leaving and closing the door as quietly as possible behind her.

Marius' entrance into her life has opened up doors she hardly ever considered; she's in love, she potentially has someone other than her beloved papa to share her life with, and despite the tragic, terrifying circumstances, she suddenly has a gaggle of what are quickly beginning to feel like older brothers, and a younger one in Gavroche. Aside from her father, Toussaint, and some of her friends from her school days in the convent, she's always been alone.

And now she has this strange, mixed-up family; Courfeyrac and Grantaire, who already feel comfortable teasing her as they might a sister; Combeferre, who always seems ready to offer her a book suggestion when she asks; Feuilly, who has already promised to help her improve her painting and drawing skills (he's roped Grantaire in too, swearing he's going to get him back into art); Gavroche, who ever re-awakens the child in her, always ready for an adventure. She remembers him as a baby when she lived with the Thenardiers, always crying for a mother who never cared for him. And there's Marius, whose very presence warms her all the way to to the tips of her fingers and toes, whose smile makes her heart beat faster than she knew possible, Marius, who held her tightly despite his own physical pain while she cried after learning the heartbreaking fate of her mother, and in return she embraced him when he grieved over his friends. If only she'd know that day she laid eyes on him in the Luxembourg Gardens, what it would all eventually mean.

And then there's Enjolras, who is always kind to her, who always looks at her as if he'd like to get to know her better, but he's been so ill that he's been asleep most of the time he's been with them, so she hasn't gotten to talk to him as much as she'd like. Intensity and passion practically radiate off his person, almost creating a barrier around him that seems difficult to penetrate. But the other boys love him fiercely; she's seen how they worry, how they fret, how they hate leaving his side.

And now…

Now she feels an almost inexplicable need to tell him about her childhood, about her mother, because the cause he fought for, the cause all of them fought for…it was a cause for children like her.

And as she's learned, the quickest way to Enjolras' heart is showing an appreciation for his cause, showing a belief in something, perhaps even just in someone, showing hope.

And she believes in their cause.

She makes her way down the hall, stopping outside the door when she hears Enjolras and Feuilly's voices floating toward her, making sure she isn't interrupting a private conversation.

"I don't suppose you'd let me let me slip out of bed and at least go downstairs for a bit, would you Feuilly?" Enjolras asks, sounding almost like a child.

Cosette can practically see Feuilly's indulgent grin spreading across his face.

"I'm the second worst person after Combeferre to ask," Feuilly says, a small laugh in his tone. "He told me under no circumstance was I to let you out of this bed. That journey added a bit of time onto your bed-ridden sentence, I'm afraid."

"If it were me," Gavroche says, and through the crack in the door, Cosette can see him standing up, puffing up his chest and crossing his arms. "You would say 'Gavroche! Get back in that bed this instant or you don't get a rifle for the next barricade!'"

Enjolras narrows his eyes, but there is a very clear glint of amused affection within them.

"You think you're witty then?" Enjolras asks.

"I know I am," Gavroche says proudly. "Bahorel said so himself. Bossuet too, and he was the king of puns."

At this Enjolras smiles, but it's a smile tinged with melancholy, matching the expression on Feuilly's face.

Cosette knocks, pushing the door all the way open.

"Ah, Cosette, you've come to help me keep this stubborn man in bed then?" Feuilly asks, tilting his slightly too large cap back on his head, and she makes a note to ask her father to pick him up a new one when he can, and then leave it in Feuilly's room, knowing he probably won't take it directly; he's been shy enough about accepting the new clothes purchased for all the boys, used to buying things on his own dime alone, though she senses his friends have forcibly bought him dinner more than once.

"Well someone has to," she says, a teasing lilt in her voice as she looks at Enjolras, who looks back. "I've heard tell this one's pretty swift and rather well-equipped at one-on-one combat."

Enjolras' mouth drops open in surprise at the perceived implication he would fight Feuilly in order to get out of bed.

"I would never…" he pauses. "You are teasing me."

"Yes," Cosette says, laughing now. "I know you would never lay a hand on any of your friends, no matter what a stubborn patient you are. Though I don't know that I'd like to be an enemy who threatened someone you cared about."

"You wouldn't," Feuilly says firmly, putting a hand on Enjolras' good shoulder.

"I don't know how much use I'd be in this state," Enjolras adds. "But our friend Bahorel, he said to me years ago 'Enjolras, you can't get started in this revolution business and get up to the things we do running from gendarmes and such not knowing how to defend yourself.' So he started teaching me. That's how I met Grantaire initially, actually. He was friends with Bahorel, who brought him along to one of our lessons since Grantaire knows boxing well. "

"Enjolras," Feuilly remarks. "Do you remember that time last year when I had a head cold and drug myself to the meeting after a long day at work and you insisted that I go home and rest? And under no circumstance was I to go home and read, but go straight to bed? That me prolonging resting would only prolong my illness? That if I needed to take a day off work you would make up my wages no matter my argument?"

"I…" Enjolras says, clearly searching for an argument. "Yes. But…"

"Are you not human like the rest of us?" Feuilly continues, voice softening.

"I…decidedly so, yes," Enjolras concedes.

"It seems you've won the argument, Feuilly," Cosette says, watching Gavroche shake with laughter.

"He has a knack for real world wisdom," Enjolras, replies, fondness and respect in his eyes when he looks at his friend.

Enjolras shifts his arm and suddenly gasps audibly.

"What's the matter?" Cosette asks, moving towards him instantly.

"Nothing," he says quickly. "Just a bit of pain…"

"Nonsense," Cosette says. "May I see, please?"

He nods his consent, and Cosette gingerly pulls down the shoulder of his nightshirt, seeing a few splotches of fresh blood dotting the white bandage.

"There's some residual bleeding," Cosette says. "I should change the bandage, Combeferre showed me how, with Marius…"

"I'm sure it can wait until Combeferre returns," Enjolras argues.

"No it can't," Cosette says, stern. She looks kindly back at Feuilly and Gavroche, both of whom look concerned. "Would the two of you mind helping Madame Bellard in the garden for a few minutes while I change his bandage? From out the window it looked like she was having some trouble tussling with some things."

"Of course," Feuilly replies. "Come on Gav, let's see what we can do." He ruffles Gavroche's hair, but Cosette doesn't miss the little boy's worried glance back at Enjolras, who nods at him with a small, reassuring smile.

Cosette pulls out the extra bandages and the ointment Combeferre left in the bedside drawer, helping Enjolras pull his shirt off.

"You really don't have to do this Cosette," he tries once more.

"Of course I do," she says. "We're friends aren't we? I'm not just going to sit here and allow you to bleed."

"Friends," Enjolras says, meeting her eyes again. "Yes. Yes we are friends."

She dabs the ointment on the healing wound, and he bites his lip against the sting, trying to stifle the hiss of pain escaping him and Cosette almost imperceptibly shakes her head.

"I know you feel rather purposeless at the moment, bedridden like this," she tells him. "But you will be well again, and then I have no doubt that you will find a way to get back to your cause, with or without the threat of Inspector Javert being on our trail."

"It's a part of me," Enjolras says in reply. "It's a part of who we all are. It's the breath in me, truthfully, so I will always find a way back to it. But I would like to keep my remaining friends safe from Javert, if at all possible."

Cosette nods, mulling over her thoughts and thinking of the mother of whom she only remembers dream-like visions, flowing blond hair and dressed in white…

_There is a lady all in white, holds me and sings a lullaby, she's nice to see, and she's soft to touch, she says 'Cosette, I love you very much'…_

"Your cause means a great deal to me, you know," she finally says, stirring her courage.

He looks at her again, and suddenly she realizes why his blue eyes strike her so much; they resemble her mother's, resemble Fantine's. She was too young to remember very much at all about her mother, but she remembers looking into a pair of shockingly blue eyes just before being left at the inn.

"I know papa told you that he adopted me," Cosette continues, working at re-bandaging Enjolras' shoulder. "That my mother was a worker in one of his factories."

"He did, yes," Enjolras says, gentle, because he senses how difficult a story this is for her to tell.

"My father abandoned my mother," she tells him. "And I never knew him. I have very hazy memories of my mother; she left me in the care of the Thenardiers when I was two, possibly three, but papa told me she had no idea what sorts of people they were, how cruel they would be to me. Their daughter, Eponine, who died at the barricade, she was a friend of Marius'."

"Yes," Enjolras answers. "I confess…I thought I saw something in your eyes when we lit the candle for her, but I didn't want to intrude."

"We weren't friends as children," Cosette says. "Her parents never would have allowed it; but I feel terrible for what happened to her; Marius says they treated her horribly as she grew older, which is only made worse by the fact that they seemed to love her a great deal when we were children, and the loss of that... She also died trying to save Marius and for that I will be forever grateful to her, but I wish she hadn't died, I wish… I wish I could have helped her, somehow. I know Gavroche is safe here with us, but I can only hope Azelma, Eponine's younger sister, fares better, away from her terrible parents."

"I know of the Patron-Minette gang," Enjolras says. "One of their men infiltrated our barricade, though I didn't realize it until after the man was dead. I'm so sorry the Thenardiers treated you so terribly Cosette. You are truly remarkable for being the kind person you are, despite that treatment. I have found, in my time, orphans to be some of the strongest, most selfless people I've met; Feuilly, Gavroche too, as his parents abandoned him…you."

Cosette smiles sadly, tying off the bandage.

"I've never found bitterness a suitable route," she tells him, sitting down on the edge of the bed now. "But now that I know all my mother went through to keep me alive, after papa told me…" she stops, her voice suddenly betraying her.

But then she feels Enjolras' warm hand touching her arm lightly, encouragingly.

"She sold her hair, her teeth, her body…everything," Cosette continues after a moment. "All to save me. How could I strive to be anything but grateful after I knew that? Most children would be lucky to have such a mother. But what I wanted to say was thank you. Thank you for fighting a cause on behalf of children like me, on behalf of women like my mother; it means a great deal to me, knowing that people are willing to risk their lives for a different world where my mother's situation, my situation, might have been prevented. Because if not for my papa rescuing me from that awful place, there's certainly no telling what would have happened to me. So…thank you."

"You are most welcome mademoiselle," Enjolras says. "But I fear you give me too much credit."

"No," Cosette says, meeting his gaze head on once more. "I'm not. You deserve it; you are a brave, compassionate soul, Enjolras. All of you are. And if there's a way, I'd like to help. With the cause that is."

"Absolutely," he says, smiling fully now. "We are ever looking for new perspectives. Combeferre will be thrilled to have a woman's thoughts; the suffering of women is one of the topics he gets most fervent about, I've found. I've learned a great deal about it from him."

"As soon as you're well then," she tells him, placing a kiss on his cheek before he can stop her. "Now sleep!" she chides him. "You were supposed to be asleep already, so you'd best do so or Combeferre will worry himself into the floor. I also do not think papa will sleep properly until you and Marius are fully healed, so to bed with you, that it might happen faster."

"Of course," he says, eyes twinkling as they fall closed. "Thank you, Cosette."

"You're most welcome, Enjolras," she says.

With that she closes the door, feeling very much as if she's just cemented the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

A/N: Hello again! I know I have been neglecting Valjean somewhat lately, but the next couple of chapters are so full of him you won't even know what hit you. I hope you enjoyed this!


	18. News from Paris

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello everyone! Thank you again for all of the amazing, wonderful feedback on the last chapter! Life got a little crazy this week so I didn't get to answer everyone's reviews, but I'm absolutely going to try this time around, and always know they are so very much appreciated! Thanks to everyone reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 18: News from Paris

Five days pass, and things at least have the appearance of settling down, though Valjean does not yet trust the situation, does not trust that Javert won't burst on them at any given moment.

He only hopes it won't happen.

He sits alone on the back portico, enjoying the sunshine on his face, enjoying this moment of peace, of quiet amongst the intense insanity of the past few weeks.

And yet that heavy, burning, near-constant anxiety fills the pit of his stomach, the same anxiety he felt in those first days with Cosette after Javert chased them through Paris, fiery, hot, and unending.

He doesn't welcome its return.

He's lived his entire post-breaking-parole existence on edge, but none so much as those first days with Cosette; when he initially broke parole it was only himself he had to worry for, but taking Cosette into his care added an entirely new layer to his apprehension.

And now with Cosette, with all of these young men under his protection?

He hardly knows how to handle the constant stress, and he isn't sleeping more than a few hours a night, incessantly awakened by nightmares of which he can only remember flashes, but nightmares nonetheless. He sees Cosette's heartbroken expression when M. Gillenormand finds out his true past and steals Marius away, sees all the boys shout and sob as Javert drags Enjolras away, sees a vision of Enjolras locked in the galleys like himself, that flame of perpetual hope burnt completely out with despair, sees him standing before a firing squad, defiant and strong until the bullets knock him down.

He shakes his head, willing the images away.

He cannot let these things happen.

The sound of the door opening slightly jolts him from his reverie, and he turns, seeing Marius standing before him, looking nervous.

"I'm not bothering you am I monsieur?" he asks shyly. "I could come back…"

"No son, it's perfectly fine, I'm just thinking," Valjean tells him, patting the chair next to him. "Join me if you like."

Marius does, sitting down across from Valjean and knotting his fingers in his lap, looking determined but still a bit afraid.

Valjean doesn't know for certain, what with everything going on it could be anything making him nervous, but he senses he might know what this particular form of nerves is about.

"Are you feeling alright?" Valjean asks. Marius' injury still prevents him from wearing a waistcoat just yet, and Valjean can see the white bandage poking out from underneath the top of his dark green shirt.

"Still in a bit of pain, still a bit shaky and weary," Marius admits, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "But Combeferre says I need to start building my strength back up slowly now that the initial recovery is over. I just have to be careful to not re-open the wound, since it's started healing. I only worry for Enjolras; I know he's getting better every day, but his recovery will take longer than mine; he got shot twice, and that infection…"

Valjean nods, remembering the immensely frustrated look on Enjolras' face a few days ago when first learning to manage the cane for his leg; Combeferre now allows him out of bed for a few hours a day, and it's progress, but for someone like Enjolras, especially in this particular situation, a situation where he clearly wants to protect his friends at any and all cost to himself, Valjean knows it's maddening.

"I will do everything in my power to make sure he's alright," Valjean assures him, briefly grasping Marius' shoulder. "That I can promise you. And Combeferre seems quite apt at getting Enjolras to rest and take his medication."

"That's because Combeferre has that power with everyone, and with Enjolras in particular," Marius says, smile widening now. "He's very hard to say no to, with his furrowed brow and his expression that says 'please just do this so you'll feel better.' Enjolras is stubborn, certainly, but he is always willing to at least listen to all of us when it comes to his own well-being, and he listens to Combeferre especially."

"You all have a truly impressive bond," Valjean tells him, sincere, almost wistful. He's never truly had friends; he's had acquaintances surely, but he's never had anyone closer to his own age that he can speak with about his troubles. His transient life since breaking his parole largely prevented that, and even during his stint as mayor, he was never able to forge the kind of relationships these boys created with each other, simply didn't understand how, and didn't know if he trusted enough to do so, and he'd been too busy working in his younger years, day in and day out. Cosette, of course, has been the blessing of his life, but the relationship between friends is different than that of a parent and a child, even after the child grows up.

But he has to admit, even if he's never really had friends, he is pleased with this growing sense of a larger family that's developing with these boys. He loved his sister and her children very much, loved them enough to steal for them, an action that set up the rest of his life, but this still feels different, somehow.

Almost…better, if he's honest with himself. Despite the fact that it's still new, there's a certain glue that binds them all together, a bond that Valjean senses will not so easily come undone.

"Is there something you wanted to talk with me about?" Valjean asks kindly, noticing that Marius has fallen silent again.

Marius looks up, clearly having gotten lost in his own thoughts.

"I…yes monsieur," he replies, running a nervous hand through his hair. "I know…I know that we are in a precarious situation, a dangerous situation, but these last few weeks, with the barricades and the loss of my friends, I…I have learned that life is not permanent. It's fleeting even, and…" he pauses, meeting Valjean's eyes directly, the barest confidence shining in his eyes. "I love Cosette very much monsieur; she is truly the most incredible woman I've ever come across and I…" he breathes in, still holding Valjean's gaze. "I wanted to ask your permission to propose to her."

Valjean's heart beats wildly in his chest; he is ecstatic and melancholy all at once, but such is the lot of a parent as their child moves through life, he's found. He knew this was coming, wanted it to come, and yet somehow he is still so surprised that it takes him a moment to respond.

"I know she means the world to you," Marius says, clearly worried now at what he believes is Valjean's hesitance. "And I know you worry for the secrets you've had to keep for so long, but you can always trust me with them monsieur. I will treat them with the utmost care, just as I will treat Cosette."

At this, Valjean cannot help but smile, and Marius smiles shakily in return, hope gleaming in his eyes.

"Of course you have my permission Marius," he says, reaching out for his future son in law's hands and grasping them lightly. "I could not hope for a better husband for Cosette. She loves you dearly. I am sorry I worried you just now, it was only the emotion of an old man."

Marius smiles again, exhaling a breath.

"When do you plan on proposing?" Valjean asks.

"Whenever the moment seems right, now that I have your permission," Marius answers, voice dancing with joy. "I simply had to have that. But my grandfather gave me a ring that belonged to my mother that I plan to use as the engagement ring. It's hidden in Courfeyrac's room."

Valjean chuckles, warmth filling him. He has worked for years to ensure Cosette's happiness, and finally it seems as though it might be on the horizon. The dark shadow of Javert looms over them and until that is neutralized he will not be easy, but he also knows he cannot hold back his daughter's life because of that fear, not when the chance for her future sits solidly in front of him.

There's another knock on the doorframe, and both Valjean and Marius turn, seeing a rather flustered looking Madame Bellard holding the newspaper. She's been fully informed of the situation of course, has worked for M. Gillenormand's family for years, and Valjean feels he can trust her, a rare thing for him.

"What's the matter?" Valjean asks instantly. "Is someone here?"

"No monsieur, nothing like that," she assures him, handing over the paper. "It's only that there's news of the fates of two rebel leaders in today's paper and I thought you should know, that the boys should know. It's on the second page. And there's also a letter here for Monsieur Enjolras, from his mother, I think."

"Thank you Madame," he says, nodding at her with a tight, cordial smile. "Would mind terribly going up and retrieving the boys and Cosette? I think the boys are all in Enjolras' room and Cosette is baking with Toussaint in the kitchen. Once you've done that, kindly tell Toussaint what you know, and then ask her to please find my paper and envelopes from where we packed them so that I might write M. Gillenormand."

"Of course monsieur," she responds, leaving swiftly to do as asked.

Valjean places the letter on the table, which is indeed from Flora, and ignoring the local Avignon news on the front page and turning to the second page; tension is radiating off Marius' body as he leans closer to Valjean, eyes widening in time with his future father-in-law's when they land on the headline.

**Parisian Insurgent Republican Leaders Sentenced to Death, Life in Prison.**

"I don't know Geoffrey, but Charles Jeanne," Marius whispers, fear making his voice tremble, because of course he's thinking of Enjolras, what will happen to him if Javert ever manages to get his hands on him. "Enjolras met with him, we all met with his group of students and workers several times; he led one of the largest groups in Paris, and now they're going to kill him. And this other man gets life in prison, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but…" he trails off, the bubble of happiness about receiving permission to propose to Cosette deflating quite violently.

Valjean reads a bit further, seeing the blatant propaganda weaved through the article; it's clear Louis-Phillipe wants these rebels portrayed as an extremist minority when he likely knows that isn't the case, but that's the tool he'll use to frighten an already terrified and weakened people, a people struck down in the past two years by the worst outbreak of Cholera France has seen in decades, by an economic downturn from which the country cannot break free.

"It says here that the king might consider commuting the death sentence to life in prison," Valjean says, a chill running down his back, cold and unforgiving. He doesn't want to say he would have preferred death over the galleys because then he wouldn't have been able to help Cosette, wouldn't have been able to help anyone, but he also cannot wish life in prison on these men, cannot wish the cruel, unjust French penal system as an escape from death because it feels like a _living_ death.

Before Marius can respond they hear voices on the stairs.

"Careful Enjolras, please," Combeferre says, his voice ripe with worry. "You're just getting used to walking with this cane, let alone walking at all."

"I'm fine Combeferre, I promise," Enjolras argues, clearly rushed to get down the stairs and hear the news.

"You're _not_," Combeferre answers, the smallest ounce of harsh frustration in his usually calm tone. "Now please just let Grantaire help you, alright? Just take his arm until we get down the stairs."

There's a small huff of annoyed breath from Enjolras, but there's also the sound of people moving around, so it sounds as if Enjolras followed Combeferre's request. After a few moments the boys appear, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and Gavroche come first, followed by Enjolras and Grantaire; Enjolras uses the cane on his left side, a shaking hand grasping Grantaire's forearm tightly, and they are followed by a rather flustered Combeferre, who helps Grantaire sit Enjolras down in the chair next to Valjean. His face is incredibly pale against the blonde hair, but his cheeks are red from the mere exertion of walking down the stairs. Cosette dashes in behind them, baking powder on the tip of her nose.

"What's happened?" Enjolras asks Valjean, polite but sounding so out of breath he might have just come in from running. "Madame Bellard said there was something in the paper? And a letter for me?"

Valjean silently hands the paper over, pointing to the article, watching as all the boys and Cosette gather around Enjolras' chair, reading along with him. Valjean watches Enjolras' eyes widen and then narrow, a glint of slightly terrifying fury sparking within them.

"Geoffrey was the one who ran out first at LaMarque's funeral," Enjolras says quietly, but his voice shakes with unbridled anger. "I met him a few times, and I saw him run out with the flag. And Jeanne," he looks around at his friends for a moment. "We met with him, with his group, several times over the years organizing gatherings and rallies and those sorts of things. Geoffrey must have someone to protest his sentence on his behalf, some sort of connection to prevent him from a death condemnation. But I'm not surprised they want to get rid of Charles Jeanne; getting rid of him does a great deal to crush our message, to make us all look like insane extremists."

Enjolras' hand squeezes the arm of the chair so hard his knuckles turn flaming red and he says nothing else, Courfeyrac's hand coming down to rest carefully on his uninjured left shoulder.

"It says there's a chance his sentence might get commuted to prison," Valjean tells them. "But no one can predict in this atmosphere."

"There may yet be hope for him then," Combeferre says, sitting on the arm of Enjolras' chair and very gently taking the hand that so firmly grasps the edge and preventing it from growing even redder. "If the regime changes, or if the people rise and there is a successful rebellion…"

Valjean watches Enjolras grasp Combeferre's hand almost unconsciously at those words, but he's still staring down at the paper, a storm of rage erupting in his eyes.

"Or if Louis-Phillipe decides he's punished the naughty children enough," Courfeyrac chimes in, looking grim.

"It wouldn't be the first time," Valjean says. "But I also wouldn't wish life in prison on anyone. But nor would I wish them death."

Valjean's eyes catch on Enjolras out of reflex, everyone's eyes catch on him because though they are all in a certain amount of danger, it's his face plastered on all the posters, it's him they're hunting.

And Enjolras can't help but notice everyone's gazes locked on him.

"I would almost rather die than be in the custody of the king I fight against," he says. "And with some of the prison conditions…that's almost as good as death. But the chance of release, of living to try and fight again…" he stops, uncharacteristically unsure of himself.

Valjean watches Courfeyrac tighten his grip on Enjolras' shoulder, watches Enjolras himself lean slightly into Combeferre, watches Feuilly take Grantaire's trembling hand in his own, watches Marius move closer to his friends, watches Cosette put an arm around Gavroche.

"How long did all of you spend preparing for this?" Valjean hears himself asking, suddenly feeling the need to know this particular piece of the puzzle surrounding these young men.

"Years," Enjolras answers. "We all met years ago, formed our society, made contacts, got involved."

"Some of us also fought on the 1830 barricades," Courfeyrac adds. "It certainly wasn't a passing fancy, not for any of us. We learned, we prepared…"

"Basically if it involved Republicanism, politics, history, revolution, insurrection, and people's rights," Feuilly finishes for his friend. "We knew it. With all of us combined, we knew it."

Quiet falls for a moment, everyone's thoughts so loud Valjean swears he can hear them whirring through the room.

"I expected death," Enjolras begins, his hymn-like voice cutting into the temporary silence with such power Valjean finds himself enthralled. "I expected arrests, I expected martyrs and fallen comrades and fallen friends. I expected that to hurt, and it most certainly does. But I cannot allow them to quell our message this way, not in the wake of these losses that shake us all to our core. If they think killing our leaders, throwing them in prison and portraying us as some kind of extremist minority, will stop us from fighting for this cause, for fighting in memory of our friends, for fighting for a people who stand with us in heart and mind even if they did not this time stand with us in body because of the fear this regime spreads through our country, they are wrong. I cannot let their lies stand."

"I agree," Combeferre says. "But the best way to do that is to make sure you're safe. That we're all safe so we can fight another day. So we can pick up and find a way to start again."

Combeferre kneels down next to Enjolras' chair, and despite the fact that everyone else watches them, Combeferre takes Enjolras' chin in one hand, gently forcing his friend to look him in the eyes, eyes that still burn with righteous anger, breath that still comes in short, rapid gasps.

"We must stay together," Feuilly echoes, and Combeferre looks away from Enjolras' face for only a moment and then looks back, waiting for their chief's response.

Enjolras nods, giving into his friends, but to Valjean's eye it almost looks as if he doesn't quite see them, so absorbed is he in his own thoughts. After a moment he jumps slightly, placing a hand on the side of Combeferre's face for a moment before remembering the letter in his hand. He opens it and reads rapidly down the page, all of their eyes fixed on him. He gets to the end, his arm falling limp, but his fist clenching around the letter even still.

"Enjolras?" Marius prods carefully, putting a hand on his friend's knee. "What is it?"

"Javert's officers raided my family's small home in Paris, where my mother was staying, just before she left the city," Enjolras says, finally taking his eyes off the letter. "She assures me she's fine, that she told them she didn't know where I was, and they had no proof to meddle with her further. But she also says they told her they plan to visit our home in Marseilles where I grew up, where my father currently is, but my mother won't be able to get there in time to warn him, though she says she sent an urgent letter."

"But she's alright?" Valjean questions. "They didn't harm her?"

"No monsieur," Enjolras says, looking up at Valjean, relief mixed with concern in his eyes. "She assures me she's alright, but my father will not be pleased to see the police at his doorstep. We don't get along well, my father and I, and though I don't think he'll tell them where we are, I do rather fear for his reaction, for his anger at my mother, for him storming here from Marseilles."

"We will worry about that when and if it happens," Valjean says, squeezing Enjolras' forearm. "Did she say where she was?"

"She was writing from Courfeyrac's parents' home, actually," Enjolras says, glancing at his friend with a small smile. "They both send their relief that you're alive and ask that you please write them when it's safe. And your mother sends her love." Enjolras looks away from Courfeyrac and to Grantaire. "Adrienne and her husband are actually traveling with my mother at the moment, for safety's sake until all of this blows over."

"I can't imagine anyone they'd be safer with," Grantaire says, mildly amused. "I would fear for my life going up against your mother."

And at that the tension finally breaks ever so much, and everyone chuckles, Enjolras included.

"She must have charmed my parents," Courfeyrac adds. "If they let her stay with them; my mother is friendly, but my father can be a bit hard to please. He's pleased I survived, but he was never pleased about my political actions."

Enjolras grasps Courfeyrac's hand in solidarity for a moment before turning to Combeferre.

"She's going to visit your parents tomorrow if possible," Enjolras tells him. "She sent a letter ahead, and then she wants to try and get home before the police arrive, since it will take them a few days. I suppose it's just a matter of time."

Silence falls again, everyone lost in their own private thoughts until Enjolras speaks.

"I'm afraid I've rather…worn myself out," he admits. "But thank you monsieur, for letting us know. And for protecting us; truly we can never thank you enough."

"It is the least I could do," Valjean says sincerely, his head pounding now. "But rest, please. You need it."

Enjolras nods, taking the arm Grantaire offers to help him walk once more, cane clunking against the hardwood as they go. Marius follows them, briefly stopping to kiss Cosette's hand and leaving the two of them alone.

"Oh Papa," Cosette says, taking Enjolras' vacated chair. Valjean's heart is so full right now he can hardly look at her without feeling rare tears prick his eyes; just minutes ago he'd agreed to let Marius offer her his hand in marriage, and now danger is in the forefront again, and it's such a strange mix of emotions that he almost fears to speak.

"Do you think Inspector Javert will find us here?" she continues, folding his larger hand into both of her smaller ones. "Is it possible?"

"It…" Valjean hesitates. He doesn't want to tell her the truth, doesn't want to worry her, but he knows now, that he owes her that. Their relationship has changed somewhat since he was honest with her about his past, about her mother. They've grown closer, and he's also acknowledged the fact that she is growing up, that he can no longer hide secrets from her. And in the face of this, he needs her to be prepared.

"It's not impossible," he tells her, squeezing her hands that hold his. "Javert is a solid policeman, as far as I can tell, and it's possible he could find us. I don't know if he remembered Marius' name when he saw me carrying him from the sewer, I don't know if he will remember and then make connections to M. Gillenormand and to his family property records. But he very well could, Cosette. I cannot lie to you. He's not out to arrest all of these boys, though I don't suspect returning to Paris would be wise for any of them at the moment, they must be on watch lists, but I do know they will try and defend Enjolras should Javert find us here, that they will try and protect him against arrest."

At his words Cosette throws her arms around him, embracing him fiercely, much like she had as a child, once she learned that he would not harm her as Madame Thenardier always had at any sign of Cosette's touch.

"I will do everything in my power to protect all of them," Valjean tells her softly. "I promise you, Cosette. I promise you. I know how much you love Marius, how fond you've grown of all of them."

He hugs her tightly and pulls her closer, praying to God that he will find a way.

A/N: I hope you liked this! Sorry for the lack of Javert in this chapter, but he will be back next time around!


	19. A Gathering Storm

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you AGAIN for all the wonderful feedback and for reading this story! And to all the guests who reviewed that I can't reply to, thank you to you as well, and to Kansas, who asked if there will be more Gavroche, the answer is yes, there will be quite a bit of him in the second half of the story! This is a very, very long chapter, so I hope you enjoy. Shout-out to ariadneslostthread for helping me get this chapter together in my head!

Oh and one last note, this first section in italics is a dream, just wanted to make that clear.

Chapter 18: A Gathering Storm

_The sound of the drumbeat throbs in Combeferre's ears._

_It grows louder with each passing minute, with each passing second, and he just wants it to cease, wants it to stop it right this instant because for some reason he's not yet sure of, it strikes fear into every crevice of his being._

_He's in Paris somehow, in the center of a large crowd, and he's not sure how he got here or where he is exactly. And why the drumbeats?_

_There's a raised platform several feet away; eight armed men stand upon it, four on each side, faces cold, stoic, and devoid entirely of emotion. Combeferre looks to the left of the platform and sees the king sitting on a second raised platform in an ornate chair which doesn't make any sense because why would the king put himself out in the middle of a rowdy crowd this way, why would he risk his own safety, even if he's surrounded by his personal guards._

_Combeferre breathes in, eyes widening in utter horror when he realizes just where he is and what's about to happen in front of his eyes._

_An execution. An execution is about to happen._

_But whose? And why is he here in the first place? Combeferre is against public executions entirely, doesn't care for any form of execution at all unless there is simply no other way, and he certainly wouldn't attend one. _

_But then he looks up._

_His heart jumps into his throat, pounding so forcefully that it hurts, sending waves of pain radiating through every inch of his body._

_Enjolras._

_It's Enjolras' execution. _

_Two men lead his best friend, his comrade in arms, his brother in heart and soul and mind, up the platform by his arms, hands tied in front of him with a coil of rough rope, blonde hair fluttering freely in the wind, not tied back as it usually is. _

_The sound of a voice behind him rips Combeferre's gaze away from Enjolras, and he turns, seeing Courfeyrac behind him._

"_Combeferre," he pleads, more desperate, more broken than Combeferre can ever recall hearing him, eyes wide and bloodshot, the light erased from those laughing dark green irises. "Please Combeferre you have to save him, you have to."_

_Suddenly Grantaire, Feuilly, and Gavroche are there too, shouting at him in harsh tones. _

"_Save him!" they cry. "You're the only one who can save him!"_

_Combeferre whips around and somehow catches Enjolras' eye from across the crowd. He's too far away to catch the exact emotions in Enjolras' eyes, but his face remains like marble, cracked marble perhaps, but marble nonetheless. He holds Combeferre's gaze and shakes his head ever so slightly when he sees his friend step forward._

"_Don't try to save me," is what Enjolras says with that gesture. "You cannot save me and keep the others safe."_

_Combeferre watches, frozen, as one of the guards attempts to tie the black blindfold around Enjolras' eyes, but he pushes the man's hands away, shaking his head again. _

_He doesn't want the blindfold, and he won't let go of Combeferre's gaze, blue eyes crackling with such intensity they look as if they might shoot off lightning. _

"_Any last words, boy?" Louis-Phillipe's voice suddenly calls through the crowd, a horrible laugh in his air, but Combeferre cannot look over, cannot break Enjolras' gaze._

_A fleeting look passes across Enjolras' face, a look that says he wants to tell this wretched king that he is no boy, but a man ready and about to die for his ideals, for fighting for the betterment of this country he loves so ferociously. _

_But he doesn't say that._

"_Long live the republic," Enjolras says. He doesn't shout, but somehow the power in his voice sends a hush over the crowd. "One day, France will be free from your tyranny, monsieur. A dream such as this does not die with me, because you cannot bury the light of the future. Of that I am certain."_

_He still holds Combeferre's gaze. _

_The eight men gather in a line in front of Enjolras, but Combeferre is tall enough that he can just barely hold Enjolras' eyes. Combeferre's entire person shakes as he feels his other friends' hands grabbing at him, sees the tiniest flicker of fear pass across Enjolras' face before returning to its former expression._

"_Take aim!" one soldier calls. _

_Combeferre tenses and words erupt from his throat before he can control himself._

"_Enjolras!" he shouts. "Please, don't shoot!"_

"_Fire!" the guard exclaims as if he didn't even hear Combeferre's cry. _

_But Enjolras did, and disappointment flashes in his eyes as he falls to the ground as if pinned there by bullets, a river of red flowing down from the platform and onto the street._

Combeferre sits straight up in bed, panting and unable to get a deep breath.

He closes his eyes, the doctor in him telling his irrational subconscious to calm down, to breathe deeply, the vicious claws of a panic digging into him. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and throws the covers off, resting his head in his quivering hands. He sits there for a few moments but he cannot calm down, cannot cease his wild thoughts, cannot erase the bloody images from his head, so he throws on one of the new dressing gowns Valjean purchased for all of them (the man is independently wealthy he's learned, from running a factory in Montreuil-sur-Mer, and no matter their protests, he's been adamant about purchasing anything that might be needed or desired) and walks quietly two doors down the hallway to Enjolras' room.

He pushes the door open without a sound, releasing a breath when he sees Enjolras sleeping rather soundly in bed, covers pulled up to his chin, hair looking almost like a halo loose and splayed out on the feather pillow. It's been a little over three weeks since the barricades fell, and this looks like the first decent sleep Enjolras has gotten as far as Combeferre can tell, so despite his desire to wake Enjolras up, to check him over and know for certain he's continuing to get better, Combeferre resists. He watches Enjolras, leaning in the doorway, until he feels his breathing calm and the shaking desist, and turns to go down to the kitchen in search of tea or coffee, knowing full well he won't fall back asleep now. Enjolras tired himself out yesterday by staying out of bed for too long, so Combeferre knows he will have to insist he stay in bed today, despite the arguments.

He's just reached the top of the stairs however, when he hears what sounds like a strangled cry from the room nearest him.

From Grantaire's room.

He stops, turning around and walking toward the sound. He knocks softly on the door, the sound ceasing.

"I…who is it?" Grantaire asks, pushing an unconvincing calm into his voice. "Now's not really…"

"It's Combeferre," Combeferre replies gently. "May I come in please?"

There's a sigh, a pause, a hesitance, and then an affirmation.

"Yes," Grantaire replies. "Just…close the door behind you."

Combeferre enters and does as requested, looking up to see a Grantaire he doesn't quite recognize; there's no sound of his rough but genuine laugh or the glint of glee in his eyes, like he's used to when Grantaire has a good day, there not even a trace of that almost hopeful adoration Combeferre sees on his face when he's listening to Enjolras speak. But there's also no slur to his voice, no reddened cheeks from the warm alcohol, no ranting words that indicate a bad day. It's just pure, unadulterated sadness. Pure fear.

"Why are you awake?" Grantaire asks, indicating that Combeferre can sit down on the bed. "It's really early. Sun's just coming up."

"Nightmares," Combeferre answers honestly, looking Grantaire directly in the eyes and sensing his friend has just experienced the same problem.

Grantaire finally meets his eyes, and for some reason it jolts Combeferre to see tears within them, tears Grantaire wipes away quickly. Combeferre isn't overly sure what to do with this Grantaire, but he tries anyhow, reaching out to stop Grantaire's hand and taking hold.

"You were having nightmares too," Combeferre confirms. "Nightmares about Enjolras."

Grantaire breathes in sharply, but nods.

"I saw him dead," he says, shaking his head and looking away from Combeferre again but not releasing his hand. "Just dead on the ground in a pool of blood and I couldn't save him, I couldn't…"

At this Grantaire breaks down, losing the ability to talk, and out of instinct Combeferre pulls him in for a hug, although this particular friend has never been the most tactile of their group. Grantaire tenses, surprised, but gives in after a mere moment, resting his head on Combeferre's shoulder and actually wrapping a tentative arm around Combeferre in return. Grantaire sniffs and then laughs, which sounds odd in the moment.

"I think I'm getting phlegm on you," Grantaire says, voice audible again.

"It doesn't matter," Combeferre says, pulling back and placing both hands on Grantaire's shoulders, a smile toying with the edges of his lips. "I've had much worse on me in my days studying medicine."

"You… had a nightmare about Enjolras too?" Grantaire asks, looking a smidge unsure.

Combeferre nods, unable to keep from grimacing; full-color images of the horrific nightmare overtake his mind with startling clarity.

"I saw him being executed," Combeferre says honestly, sensing that Grantaire doesn't need a softer truth, but the whole truth in order that he might not feel so alone in his terror. He needs empathy, not lies. "And all of you were begging me to save him and yet he told me to protect the rest of you. I didn't…I didn't know what to do."

"God, the first thing I wanted to do was go find a drink when I woke up," Grantaire admits. "It's all I've known when I'm upset, when I'm frightened. I didn't, but…" he pauses, looking off into the distance for a moment and then turning back to Combeferre, searching his face. "I'm not you Combeferre, I haven't fought for your cause for all these years, haven't been inside his head as you have; I've tried to stand with him and failed every time he gave me an opportunity. All I've done is kicked my own feet from under me, venerated him from the table in the corner. I know he considered me his friend even though I frustrated the hell out of him, and I know that we've grown closer now, but I don't…I just don't deserve it, don't deserve to even be granted the privilege of worrying. Not like you."

"R," Combeferre says, knowing his rare use of the nickname will warm Grantaire. "Enjolras doesn't walk around dictating who does and who does not deserve his friendship…"

"I know," Grantaire interrupts, apologetic. "I know that. It's me who decided I don't deserve it, not Enjolras."

"You have _always _been a part of all of our lives, a part of Enjolras' life. You have been our loyal friend," Combeferre says, taking Grantaire's hand again and holding it lightly. "And that has always been true. And you have never shunned our ideals Grantaire, you have only been afraid to fight for fear of them crumbling before you, for fear of us crumbling, for fear of failure. But Enjolras always knew you were capable of believing, that a part of you did believe in a better world, in hope, and that's why he pushed you, that's why he disdained your drinking, disdained your feigned apathy, why he trusted you, why we all trusted you to remain there during our most secret meetings. I don't know if you noticed, but Enjolras doesn't spend a lot of his life wasting time on people who don't have potential; he sees the best in people. Because how could you believe so strongly in Enjolras himself without also deep down believing in everything he stands for? He _is _what he stands for. Why would you befriend all of us, a group of fervent, passionate idealists unless you were looking for a different way of thinking?"

"I…" Grantaire starts, but cannot finish.

"Your desire to seek the light has wrapped itself up in your love for Enjolras," Combeferre says, kind. "And that was never completely clear to Enjolras himself until the barricades fell. But he understands more fully now, hopes that he can turn that belief focused on his ability to change this world into belief of a larger kind, into belief in yourself. You might not fight for our cause just yet, but you fought for us that day, when we were escaping from the barricade. You were just as brave as any of us in that moment. You would do anything for any of us, and that means everything."

Grantaire squeezes Combeferre's hand, looking down again with his gaze stuck on the coverlet.

"Has anyone ever told you that your knack for being right is incredibly irritating?" Grantaire asks, but there is the smallest grin on his face, fondness in his tone.

"Courfeyrac tells me that regularly," Combeferre says, smiling now. "And Bahorel used to as well."

There's the usual, pained moment of silence at the mention of one of their deceased friends' names, and Combeferre feels it hit him like a physical blow. He suspects it will never fade, but they are all growing terribly accustomed to the gaping holes their friends left in their wake.

"I don't want him to die," Grantaire whispers after a moment. "We already almost lost him once, I don't…I swear if Javert finds us here I will rip him limb from limb to stop him from arresting Enjolras."

Combeferre wants to tell Grantaire that he will protect Enjolras with everything in him, that he will find a way to keep them all together, and he sincerely believes that's a possible scenario because he always, always hopes for the best.

But he also remembers the promise Enjolras exacted from him, remembers the rare desperation in his best friend's voice, his unyielding desire to save and protect the rest of them even if it meant throwing himself into Javert's hands.

He knows Enjolras better than anyone else, and yet in this situation…

In this situation he doesn't know if he can predict anything, cannot prepare, cannot reason his way out, cannot predict Enjolras himself. And for Combeferre, for whom preparedness and reason form the solidity of his person, it is a most discomfiting position.

"It will be alright," Combeferre tells Grantaire, because that's all he can say, that's all he can think to say, and that's terrifying. He's always been apt at comforting, at calming, at easing fears. He grounds people in the good of the present even through the shadows of the darkness they might experience, and in turn Enjolras takes that strength and bids them to look toward the good of the future, the good they must fight for. And yet now the whole process feels so fractured because everything they've known has been ripped out from under them. Combeferre knows in his heart that this is reparable, that things will naturally improve, but right now he feels so lost, and he does not yet know how to fix that problem. They prepared for years for this revolution, for its aftermath if they survived, and yet this combination of circumstances came unexpectedly.

"We will be alright. Enjolras will be alright," Combeferre continues, voice a bit stronger now. "It will be alright."

Grantaire looks at him as if uncertain whether Combeferre is trying to convince him or himself, but nods, relaxing somewhat.

"Let's go downstairs for a bit and find some tea," Combeferre says, clasping Grantaire's shoulder. "I've met Englishmen in Paris who swear by its calming properties."

Grantaire agrees and follows him to the kitchen, where an already awake Toussaint and Madame Bellard brew them tea, and they sit together, talking over the newspaper. After an hour or so Combeferre looks at the time and excuses himself to go check on Enjolras, who potentially needs a bandage change and a dose of Laudanum after yesterday's overexertion.

He knocks on the door, surprised when he hears Enjolras' voice bidding him to enter, having expected his friend to still be sleeping.

"Good morning," Combeferre says, leaving the door cracked open behind him. "How are you feeling?"

Enjolras winces obviously as he moves his legs over the side of the bed, steadying himself on his good arm, but Combeferre notices it trembling under all the weight.

"Not so well then?" Combeferre questions, unable to push away the images from his nightmare when he sees Enjolras' determined expression, unable to push away memories from the night he nearly died from infection, so pale he almost faded away into the white sheets.

"I'm just sore," Enjolras answers. "A bit stiff. I was going to come downstairs and eat breakfast with you, but I might need your help down the stairs, even with the cane."

"Bed today, I think," Combeferre persists, pulling out the Laudanum. "For the morning at the very least. You're getting better, but we kept you out far too long yesterday. This takes time."

"I'm fine Combeferre," Enjolras argues, the tiniest trace of annoyance in his tone, annoyance that is almost never directed at Combeferre, so it takes him by surprise, though he expected Enjolras' stubbornness.

"You are most certainly _not_ fine," Combeferre perseveres. "Just indulge me won't you? Stay in bed and take this."

"Combeferre…" Enjolras tries again, softer this time, but Combeferre feels his heart pounding inexplicably in his chest, his normally composed attitude escaping him in wake of his terrible dream, in wake of the pressure building and expanding in this house as the days go by and Javert potentially gets closer.

"You are being ridiculous," Combeferre snaps, flustered, but he isn't raising his voice. "You were nearly fatally injured, you cannot expect to simply do as you like in a matter of three weeks, it just isn't that simple. You nearly died, Enjolras, did you forget?"

Enjolras stares at him, and Combeferre nearly laughs at how childlike his expression is, but then Enjolras' eyes narrow, anger flaring up within them like blue flames.

"That is not so easy to forget," he says, very clearly trying to keep his voice even. "But I am also not a child that needs coddling, so I would appreciate if you did not treat me in such a way. I know my own body."

"I am the doctor, Enjolras," Combeferre says, trying to control his breathing, words seemingly flowing from him uncontrollably. He's debated with Enjolras, has had perhaps _one_ fleeting disagreement in all their years of friendship, but nothing like this, _never_ like this. They understand each other on a fundamental level, understand each other without needing words, and this throws him. "Not you. You are a lawyer, so I would very much appreciate it if you would listen, for once, about your own well-being. Or are you determined to do yourself in before Javert can even manage to find us? You have grown alarmingly fatalistic."

"Fatalistic?" Enjolras asks, voice rising. "I want to protect all of you and you refer to that as fatalistic?"

"And we want to protect _you_," Combeferre says, voice growing icier than he likes. "But apparently that doesn't matter to you."

"This isn't even about my overexertion," Enjolras says, understanding dawning on him. "This is about what I asked of you. You throw that back in my face."

"No," Combeferre says, holding back the tears threatening his eyes. "I am only reminding you that your life happens to mean a great deal to all of us, and that you should take proper care of it and stay in this bed. I would never use something you requested of me against you. But if you are determined, go downstairs, but I will not help you hurt yourself, and it will only land you in this bed for longer. You cannot simply get up and walk around all day after 3 weeks of bed rest, your body can't take it."

"I am not trying to hurt you by wanting out of this bed," Enjolras says fiercely, eyes widening, shock and hurt mixing with the anger in his eyes, but he does not try hiding his emotion, not with Combeferre, even in the midst of this argument. "I want to build up my strength so I can prepare myself for whatever might come. You said yourself I needed that, and you've let Marius…"

"Marius was not as badly injured as you are," Combeferre says, clenching his fists, his voice growing quiet and harsh, some words merely a hiss as his throat closes with emotion, clauses bitten out before he loses what little control remains within him. "He also did not acquire an infection that nearly killed him. And Marius is much more willing to listen to me when I tell him to rest. We didn't fight so hard to save you, only for you have such little regard for your own life."

"I do not disregard my life," Enjolras protests, cheeks flushing scarlet.

Enjolras looks at him, breathing hard with feeling, and after holding the gaze for a moment Combeferre turns to go, walking quickly past Courfeyrac and Cosette, who are just outside the door, looking baffled.

Courfeyrac's gaze looks from Enjolras sitting on the bed, flushed and stunned, to Combeferre's retreating figure. With a quick glance back, Courfeyrac squeezes Cosette's hand and follows Combeferre, who walks swiftly down the hallway, darting quickly into his room. He knows Courfeyrac followed him, but he also knows trying to fend him off would be futile.

"What happened?" Courfeyrac asks in an uncharacteristically grave tone, shutting the door behind him.

"Why did you come after me and not go to Enjolras?" Combeferre asks in reply, perching on the edge of his bed, fingers sliding back into his hair and wrapping themselves around the dark reddish-brown strands.

"Because at first glance it looked like you might need me more," Courfeyrac answers. "I just had a feeling. And I thought in this state Enjolras might listen to someone like Cosette. He's less likely to argue with her, anyway, might calm that fire I saw in his eyes down a bit. I'm asking again: what happened? You and Enjolras never fight, it's unheard of. I go so far as to call it blasphemous."

"He won't _listen_," Combeferre chokes out, hating that he cannot control the emotion in his voice. "He's self-sacrificing to a damn fault, and he's so concerned over Javert finding us, so busy looking toward the future of what _might _happen that he refuses to face his injuries, his illness, in the present."

"But that's always been Enjolras," Courfeyrac points out, sitting by Combeferre's side on the bed. "He's always looking toward the future. All of us, you especially, are the ones who ground him in the present just enough, who bring his feet down to the ground ever so much, in the best of ways. We let him fly, but we also remind him to land again."

"Yes, but now he won't let us, won't let me," Combeferre answers, allowing Courfeyrac to pull him close with one arm, resting his head on Courfeyrac's always comfortable and welcoming shoulder. "I know," he breathes in, hating the images that flood his mind, images of Javert dragging Enjolras away, chains locked around his hands. "I know that there's a chance Javert will find us, I know that, but I don't want Enjolras making himself worse by trying to prepare for it because not only will it make him worse now, it will weaken him if that day comes. He just needs to _rest_. He's the _soul_ of us, Courfeyrac, I don't…"

"Shh," Courfeyrac says, rubbing a hand up and down Combeferre's still trembling arm. "I know. Believe me, I know, because I suspect we are all having the same nightmares. Just give him a little while, and I bet he'll come around. I know he will, because I know Enjolras."

Combeferre nods, giving into Courfeyrac's embrace for a few moments, just listening to their breathing.

* * *

Enjolras' mind won't stop spinning.

Combeferre is angry with him.

Has Combeferre ever truly been angry with him?

No, he doesn't recall any time even sparingly similar to this. Combeferre's been frustrated with him before, and Enjolras annoyed, but he can count even those times on one hand without using all his fingers.

They've never fought, not once.

Is he angry at Combeferre?

He certainly feels angry, feels his blood pulsing hot through his veins. He know he has a temper when pushed, but having the full-force of said temper directed toward Combeferre is foreign to him, yet he cannot push the feeling away entirely. He needs to regain his strength if he's going to protect his friends from Javert's threat, because if the policeman somehow shows up on their doorstep, he'll be damned if he lets him lay a hand on any of them.

If it comes down to it, if it comes down to his life or theirs…

That isn't a choice in his mind.

And yet the thought of being separated from them feels like a knife slicing into his heart, the thought of the agony it will cause them if he's taken, if he's killed, a bullet shot straight into his soul.

He closes his eyes briefly, hands fisting into the sheets.

He's the only one who can make this choice, and he wants Comberre to see that, _needs_ him to see that.

And so he rises from the bed, retrieving his cane from where it rests next to him. His legs quiver the moment his feet hit the floor but he takes a step forward anyway, nearly stumbling until a pair of feminine arms seize him just before he hits the floor.

"Easy there," Cosette's voice says, hands grasping his forearms. "I think you're trying to go to fast. If you're set on going downstairs, at least let me help you."

Enjolras nods, allowing her to position him so that he's next to her, one arm looped through her smaller one, the other leaning heavily on his cane.

"Are you sure it won't hurt you for me to lean on your arm?" Enjolras asks, looking over at her as they exit his room.

"Not at all," Cosette says, smiling up at him. "You're leaning mostly on the cane, I'm just keeping you steady. Combeferre…" she pauses, looking embarrassed. "Combeferre showed me how to do it properly for Marius."

"You…you heard our disagreement?" Enjolras asks, training his eyes on the floor.

"I didn't intend to," Cosette admits. "But Courfeyrac and I were coming to check on you on our way to see if Marius was awake, and…" she trails off, not really needing to explain the rest. "Would you like to talk about it?" she asks.

"I…" Enjolras begins. He wants to talk with Cosette, feels she might understand him, but also knows she might try and tell him that he doesn't have to hand himself over should Javert find them, that there's some other way when he knows there isn't. "I'm not sure what to say, really. I've never fought with Combeferre before."

"I'm certain you will work it out in no time," Cosette says, easing him down stair by stair, gentle as Combeferre himself. "You two are practically fused together. All of you are really, it's a beautiful friendship to behold."

Enjolras nods, Combeferre's shouts mixing with ever present nightmares, mixing with the sounds of gunfire and screaming from the barricade. He sees Jehan's face in front of him, feels the poet's fingers entangling with his own as they had in his one peaceful dream; Jehan would have hated seeing them fight, Enjolras knows.

"I just feel…purposeless," Enjolras admits before he can stop himself. "Being this injured, this ill, I just want to get back on my feet again. I want to be able to _do_ something."

"You will," Cosette assures him. "You will Enjolras, of that I'm certain. But you giving yourself time to heal properly is not useless, it's what you _need_. And what you need right now is what your friends need."

Enjolras nods, falling into his thoughts as they approach the dining room, where Feuilly and Gavroche sit at the table, drinking tea and eating freshly baked croissants. They wave at him in greeting, and Enjolras can't help but smile a bit. The sight makes him happy and yet also sends melancholy rushing through him; he has no doubt that the food they've had since coming under Valjean's care is some of the best Feuilly and Gavroche have ever tasted, and he despises the idea that there were likely many nights when these two went hungry, no matter how much Les Amis tried preventing that once Feuilly and Gavroche came into their fold.

"Morning Enjolras!" Gavroche chirps happily, stuffing bread into his mouth. "Croissant?"

"You shouldn't eat so quickly," Enjolras chides, sitting down next to the little boy. "And just tea, I think. Thank you though."

"You should at least try and eat a half of one, Enjolras," Feuilly says, promptly taking one and cutting it in two. "You've hardly eaten at all recently. Indulge me?"

_Indulge me, won't you_? Enjolras hears Combeferre say.

"For you, Feuilly," Enjolras replies, taking the pastry from his friend.

He stays with them for about half an hour, the pain in his shoulder, and to a much greater extent, his leg, growing more vehement by the minute. He excuses himself, politely declining their offers of assistance, and starts toward the stairs.

But he only makes it about halfway.

He is shaking with effort, muscles burning, knees weak, and he has no other choice but to sit down with his back resting against the wall, sweat pouring down his face from exertion. He wills himself to get back up again before someone finds him here, before Combeferre finds him here.

He hears footsteps nearing him, but can't look up, can't stand for any of his friends to see him like this, even though they've seen him much worse in the past few weeks.

He just can't bear to worry them any further, but his body isn't cooperating.

"Enjolras?"

It's Grantaire.

"Are you alright?" Grantaire asks, crouching down next to him on the stairs, so close that Enjolras notices the purple smudged under his eyes from lack of sleep.

"I…" Enjolras begins, feeling another punch of pain sock him in the leg.

"I think the answer to that is no," Grantaire whispers, hesitantly touching Enjolras' face as though it might be made of glass and turning it toward him.

Enjolras closes his eyes again; he has told Grantaire time and again that he is nothing more than a man, lecturing his friend for all times he's compared him to various Greek deities, and yet he still doesn't want Grantaire seeing him so very weak, so helpless. It makes him feel like a hypocrite, and that's the last thing he wants.

"Enjolras look at me," Grantaire says. "Please."

Enjolras does, seeing the worry reflected in his friend's eyes.

"Why were you out of bed without help?" Grantaire asks.

"Because I…because I need to learn to get around on my own," Enjolras says, gritting his teeth against the pain, which is now becoming unbearable. "I have to."

"Not just yet you don't," Grantaire replies sternly. He looks down, spying something darkening Enjolras' trouser leg. "You're bleeding, Enjolras," he says, sounding frantic.

"I see that," Enjolras says, grasping Grantaire's arm without even realizing he was reaching, eyes darting toward the bottom of the stairs and seeing Valjean approaching them now, gazing at Enjolras perplexed but curious. Enjolras sighs, fingernails digging into his palms against the pain.

_You need Combeferre_, the rational voice inside his head says. _And he will come, you know that._

"Grantaire, could you please find Combeferre for me?" Enjolras asks, giving in. "I think he's with Courfeyrac."

"Monsieur, will you stay with him for a moment?" Grantaire asks, looking at Valjean.

"Of course," Valjean says, sitting down on the stairs next to Enjolras, watching as Grantaire goes off down the hall in search of Combeferre.

Silence falls between Valjean and Enjolras for a few seconds, but Enjolras senses a question on the older man's lips.

"You know you aren't alone in this, don't you Enjolras?" Valjean questions. "That we will not simply hand you over to Javert without a fight?"

_I know_, Enjolras wants to say. _And that's just the problem_.

"I have to protect the others," Enjolras says, hardly knowing what he's saying now, drowning as he is in pain. He has never wanted the Laudanum, but he wants it now. "It doesn't matter what happens to me as long as they are safe."

He meets Valjean's eyes, seeing an unexpected understanding there, and Enjolras realizes this is how Valjean must feel about Cosette, how he must feel any time something threatens her happiness or well-being.

Valjean doesn't reply in words, instead wrapping a ginger, careful arm around Enjolras' waist in order that he might avoid the injured shoulder, and almost against his own accord Enjolras' head falls on Valjean's shoulder. It's such a fatherly gesture, one that Enjolras hasn't experienced in years from his own distant father, and it makes him feel safe, if only for a moment.

After a few minutes Combeferre arrives with supplies in hand. He reassures Valjean and Grantaire that he can handle it, and they leave him alone with Enjolras.

"Take this," Combeferre says promptly, pouring the Laudanum into a glass and avoiding Enjolras' eyes.

Enjolras accepts it silently and tries tipping the glass to his lips, but finds he cannot control his trembling hands.

"Damn it," he breathes, unable to look at Combeferre, feeling the frustration practically radiating off his best friend.

After a moment he feels Combeferre's hand curl over his own, directing the glass successfully to his lips, the medication sending warmth spreading through his body. Combeferre remains silent, feeling his forehead and looking disapprovingly at the small blood stain on Enjolras' trousers.

"I'm sorry," Enjolras whispers. "I'm sorry for not listening to you."

"You are bleeding and trembling with pain and fatigue on the stairs, Enjolras," Combeferre says, sharp but not entirely unkind. "This is why I didn't want you out of bed, this is why…you are so damned stubborn about your own well-being…"

"I know," Enjolras says, finally looking Combeferre in the eye. "I know I am. I just…I just don't want to be weak now, not when I might need to protect the rest of you against Javert, I can't…I'm _sorry_ Combeferre."

At this Combeferre puts both hands on the sides of Enjolras' face, his voice cracked with desperation.

"I don't want you to fall deathly ill again because you are preparing for something that might not happen," Combeferre says, searching Enjolras' face. "I know, I _know_ we always prepare, but don't you see that trying to prepare for Javert's possible arrival will only make you weaker? That this will happen time and again? Your body needs _time_, Enjolras. I know you are used to being the leader, I know that, but do not condemn yourself before Javert even finds us, if he finds us. I understand your need to protect us, but please stop trying when we don't yet need protection. I didn't forget what you asked of me, but for now you need to listen to me. _Please_."

Enjolras nods, resting his forehead against Combeferre's and feeling the light press of his friend's lips against his forehead.

"I'm sorry," Enjolras says again.

"I know," Combeferre says. "And _I'm_ sorry I lost control on you…I'd had a nightmare just before I came to check in on you, and it rattled me rather a lot."

Enjolras doesn't need to ask about the content of the nightmares, because he knows it concerned his death, knew it the moment those words escaped Combeferre's lips.

"I don't like worrying you," Enjolras says, exhaustion overcoming him now. "I hate it."

"I know," Combeferre repeats. "But let's get you up and back to bed, alright? I need to change this leg bandage and check your shoulder for any residual bleeding."

Enjolras takes his cane, gripping it so hard his knuckles pop white, and Combeferre puts an arm tight around his waist, pulling him close, both doing the best they can to keep as much weight as possible off Enjolras' bad leg.

After they settle Enjolras back in bed, fresh bandages on both his wounds, Combeferre pulls the closest chair up to the bedside.

"You're not going anywhere?" Enjolras asks, eyes closing from the pull of the Laudanum. "It's a beautiful day outside."

"I think I'll stay here with you and read," Combeferre says, smoothing the bedcovers unnecessarily. "Cosette and Marius won't let up about those British Romantic poets, and I'd only read a few that Jehan suggested to me, so I thought I'd read a few more while I sit here with you. It makes me feel close to Jehan, reading these poems, which make me feel close to all of them, and at the same time I'll be close to you."

"I miss them all so much," Enjolras says. "Joly, Bossuet, Jehan, Bahorel."

"I do too," Combeferre says sadly. "I yearn for those nights at the Musain, at the Corinth, the room full to bursting with friends and comrades all sharing a vision of the future. But rest, Enjolras, and they may come to you in dreams."

Enjolras smiles, reaching out to squeeze Combeferre's hand in thanks before falling into the arms of slumber.

* * *

It's past nine-thirty in the evening when Bertrand bursts through Javert's office door without knocking.

"Bertrand, what the devil…" Javert begins, surprised when his underling cuts him off.

"I went by the records office again tonight Inspector," he begins, speaking in such a rush Javert listens closely in order to make out the phrases. "And finally, after all these days, they found the records related to the Pontmercy boy."

"Hand them here," Javert says, reaching out his hand, heart suddenly pounding in his chest.

This could be it, this could be his path to Enjolras and wherever Valjean hides him, this could be his redemption for being mentally unable to apprehend Valjean, and arresting this foolish rebel out from under the convict's care will hurt Valjean far more than landing back in the galleys himself.

_But why do you want to hurt him?_ That familiar voice questions. _You nearly jumped off a bridge because you felt it was so morally wrong to arrest him, but you couldn't live with breaking the law._

Javert pushes the nagging voice away, but it's not quite done with him.

_And what about Cosette?_ The voice asks. _What about the girl who stopped you from throwing yourself into that river? Are you willing to show her who you really are when you burst into that house and arrest Enjolras, when you show her that her father's efforts were for nothing?_

He ignores it again and opens the file, eyes scanning quickly over the words.

"Gillenormand," he mutters, more to himself than Bertrand. "Owns a house here in Paris and in…"

"Avignon," Bertrand finishes for him, triumphant, but without a clue how much this means to Javert's cracked psyche. "And I also received this post at the door from Allard. They raided the Enjolras home in Marseille, but they didn't find anything, not a sign of Enjolras anywhere, though his father was there, but he appeared clueless as to where his son is. Much like the mother."

"Or he acted in such a way so as to convince Allard," Javert says, eyes still staring at the property records as if they're the holy grail.

"Do you want to go and speak to this Monsieur Gillenormand?" Bertrand asked, sounding slightly unnerved when Javert still doesn't look up at him, a truly disconcerting grin spreading slowly across his face.

"No," Javert says, finally looking up, the grin sending a manic glint into his eyes. "There's no point; he'll only lie to us or try and warn them if they are there. I'm going to Avignon."

"Alone, monsieur?" Bertrand asks, backing away from the desk a few steps.

"Yes, alone!" Javert growls. "You think I can't handle a few twenty-something rebels and an old man with a daughter, Bertrand?"

"No, of course Inspector," Bertrand says quickly. "You are more than capable."

"Good then. Please go and leave a note for Prefect Gerard telling him where I've gone and find me the next stagecoach in the direction of Avignon."

"Tonight, Inspector?" Bertrand asks, nervous.

"It's a six day journey at the fastest," Javert says. "I need to leave tonight if at all possible." He breathes in deeply, nodding at Bertrand and regaining his normal professional aloofness.

Bertrand nods in return, exiting the office and going to his errands.

Javert picks up one of the posters of Enjolras resting on his desk, pulling a small knife out of his pocket, a knife he found on the ground at the barricade, the knife he's certain he saw Valjean use to free his bonds, the knife he'd thought would end his life.

"You won't shake my foundations 24601," Javert whispers, flicking open up the weapon. "I shall show you how futile your efforts are."

He rears back, stabbing the knife into the center of the poster and slicing upwards, tearing the frighteningly beautiful face in half.

"You are mine, Enjolras," he whispers into the air. "And Valjean will never recover."


	20. The Wolf and the Archangel

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Thank you again to everyone for the great feedback, it is much appreciated! And thank you to everyone reading and following this story, you're all awesome. And a very heartfelt thanks to ariadneslostthread and Chaos in Her Wake, because without them this pivotal chapter would probably be a mess. Enjoy!

Chapter 20: The Wolf and the Archangel

Javert arrived in Avignon in the middle of the night and reported to the small jail just outside the city, informing them that he would need to house a prisoner for the following night. He waited until now, until midday before making his way to the Gillenormand home.

He waits, because they won't expect him in the daylight.

They will not expect him now, believing themselves safe in the daylight, free from threats and danger and death.

But the daylight is not free from justice.

He feels something settle in his chest when he rounds the bend of the long driveway and sees the manor house laid out in front of him. The house is still. They do not know he is coming. There are no horses ready, no carriages, no escape plan engineered mere hours before he can find them.

Valjean failed.

He utterly failed at protecting these rebels, and Javert will show him just what that means, will show this man of mercy just how futile his efforts are, have always been.

_And yet you still can't arrest Valjean himself_, that ever familiar voice whispers. _Why is that?_

_Because arresting Enjolras, breaking those rebels' spirits, _Javert silently argues. _That will show Valjean how wrong he is. Dragging him back to the galleys will teach him nothing. But arresting Enjolras will put everything right. I will be right. Justice will prevail and the law victorious once more._

He savors the crisp crunch of his boot heels against the gravel with each stride that brings him closer to the house.

To his salvation.

Javert restrains himself as he climbs the few steps leading to the front door, deliberating, deciding on the manner of his entrance, though it takes every ounce of self-control he possesses.

He hears voices from the window immediately to the right of the front door and he diverts his course, hidden by a column of the portico, to look into the room beyond. Javert sees a drawing room of some sort laid out beyond the pane. Enjolras sits in an armchair just behind the glass, entirely unaware and looking weary, a shade of the battle-ready archangel of revolution with righteous fury blazing in his eyes, whose statuesque face plasters the walls of Paris. He is weak, and Javert is strong and resolute but he will not underestimate Enjolras, will not underestimate his friends.

And most certainly will not underestimate Valjean, because he's learned that lesson one too many times.

Javert sees Valjean's face, etched as it has been in his mind for twenty years, turn to Enjolras and sees the fondness, the affection, alight in his kind and quiet gaze. Javert sneers, his own gaze taking in the rebel's eyes, a firestorm of passion even now, which meet Valjean's with a small, tired smile.

Javert will extinguish that storm until it's nothing more than a feeble winter rain devoid of all power.

Because Enjolras broke the _law_, Enjolras broke more laws than Javert can currently name. Enjolras will die or rot away in prison, and Javert will leave Valjean behind, will leave Valjean to wallow in his failure.

Putting Valjean back in prison, he knows, will have no effect because Valjean apparently has no care for himself anymore; he only cares for protecting and preserving those who do not deserve such shelter. And Javert cannot stand for that when he's spent his life guarding those who are worthy, those who do not break the law.

Valjean shields people like Enjolras, who threatened the security of a nation along with his comrades and like-minded men across Paris.

The faces Javert sees through the glass melt together in his mind, until he can no longer tell one from the other.

But that doesn't matter.

Javert can taste victory.

* * *

"I won!" Gavroche cries out, looking at the backgammon board almost in surprise. Valjean smiles fully in return.

"Indeed you did," Valjean says. "Tres bien, an excellent game, Master Gavroche."

Gavroche's eyes narrow in suspicion. "You let me win, didn't you?" He asks, affronted.

"I did not. I assure you. What would be the point in that, how would you learn?"

Enjolras smiles as he watches Gavroche set up the game again, chattering excitedly about the moves he made. He wonders how much Gavroche can read; he certainly has a keen mind, and he used to carry messages for them all from time to time, but Enjolras is unsure whether he'd ever discerned the full contents or meaning in the words he bore.

Enjolras has sufficiently regained strength following his overexertion a few days ago to convince Combeferre to let him out of bed today, although both he and Grantaire stay reassuringly close, they all stay close like a protective barrier around their chief. He rests in an armchair which has somehow become branded as his, bad leg propped up on an ottoman, watching Gavroche learning backgammon against Valjean. The older man is utterly absorbed, delight flashing in his eyes each time Gavroche bests him, though his lips merely quirk into a small, satisfied smile.

It is a pleasant scene, and Enjolras almost dares relax.

Almost.

No one gives it a second thought when Grantaire gets up to answer the door when they hear the firm knock; since Madame Bellard and Toussaint have gone into Avignon to pick up some household supplies, Grantaire volunteers. Valjean doesn't initially react when he sees Grantaire stride out of the room, and then suddenly fear appears in his eyes, a fear of which Enjolras doesn't at first understand the root.

Not until he hears the voice. He's only heard it on one night of his life, but he'll never forget. His body tenses automatically, the muscles contracting painfully.

"_Shoot me now or shoot me later, every school boy to his sport! Death to each and every traitor! I renounce your people's court!"_

"_You are a spy?"_

"_I am an officer of the government."_

"Out of my way."

Inspector Javert.

Valjean bolts toward the door like a shot, nearly toppling over the game of backgammon. Before the rest of them rush out after him, Enjolras tugs on Combeferre's hand, pulling him close and whispering in his ear.

"Whatever happens, protect the others," he says. "They'll listen to you."

"Enjolras…"

"Please, Combeferre," Enjolras interrupts, a very rare pleading in his voice. "Keep them safe. You have to keep them all safe. Promise me. I know it's pained you ever since I asked, but _please_. It's vital."

"Enjolras," Combeferre tries again, desperate. "I…"

"You have to be willing to let me go," Enjolras whispers, unable to drown the emotion in his voice, because he knows how much this hurts Combeferre, knows how he would feel had Combeferre asked this of him, knows watching Javert drag Combeferre or any of the others off in manacles would rip his very soul from him, all those overwhelming feelings he never quite knows what to do with spilled forth and laid bare.

But that's also the very reason he has to do this, because Javert will not leave this house without him, and he cannot have his friends hurt protecting him, not when they could live, when they could be free, could make others free.

Combeferre hesitates for a moment: Enjolras sees pure, unadulterated terror in his eyes, terror of losing Enjolras himself, mixing with a strange concoction of sadness, pain, and resolve.

"I promise to keep the others safe," Combeferre says, squeezing his hand so tightly as if he's committing the feeling to memory. "I swear to you."

He does not swear to let Enjolras go.

Enjolras lays a hand on Combeferre's cheek, allowing himself a mere moment before they go in behind Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Gavroche, Marius, and Cosette just in time to see Javert shove Grantaire to the floor, and Valjean pushing the door against Javert.

But to no avail.

In what seems like an out of body experience, Enjolras watches Javert slam his truncheon directly against Valjean's chest and knocking the breath from his lungs. Valjean steps forward again, but Javert holds the truncheon under his chin in warning as the ex-convict breathes hard, raising his eyes up to meet his attacker, and there's an anger within them that Enjolras hadn't thought Valjean capable of, a flash perhaps, of the man he'd been before encountering the kindly bishop of whom he's spoken. Their rescuer is absolutely the stronger man, but he stays where is out of concern Javert will harm someone else. The mere presence of these two men is truly something to behold; Valjean broad-shouldered, tall, and muscular, looking very much as he could lift everyone in this room without breaking a sweat, and Javert just as tall, dressed head to toe in black, long, greying hair falling loose from its neat tail and framing his face, eyes mad with intensity.

"I see you finally know your place, 24601," Javert says, surveying Valjean's face with a fiery malice, fury etched into his features. But a marked panic gleams within his eyes when he looks at Valjean, a conflict storming behind them. "You were a fool to think you could hide them from me. Do not even try to beg for mercy on their behalf."

Javert looks up, eyes landing on each of them (although his eyes fail to meet Cosette's) before fixing his gaze on Enjolras.

"You trusted this old fraud and fell right into my hands," he says, releasing Valjean, and out of the corner of his eye Enjolras sees Feuilly silently helping up a dazed Grantaire. "Time to extinguish your flame, Enjolras."

"Extinguish _my_ flame all you like inspector," Enjolras says, meeting the man's gaze head on. "You will not extinguish the flame of revolution, of freedom. Of the light of the future."

In a quick and calculated motion, Javert's hand grasps Enjolras' shirt and twists, the fabric tight against his throat and very nearly cutting off his air supply. Javert seizes him so abruptly that Enjolras stumbles, hand grasping his cane in order that he doesn't fall to the floor in front of this man, in front of his friends.

"You do not mock the _law_, boy," he seethes. "You do not mock _me_. Don't you know only death awaits you? Barring that you'll face the galleys, and I'm sure Valjean could tell you stories about the horrors awaiting you there. It's the hell where freedom goes to die, if it ever existed in the first place."

"If you take him, you take all of us," Courfeyrac growls, eyes narrowed in a most frightening manner, a manner which Enjolras has never witnessed.

"All of us or none of us," Feuilly agrees, his usually soft voice rough and harsh with anger, fists clenching at his sides.

"You won't take him," Grantaire joins in, an alarming danger emanating off his body, and Enjolras fears Grantaire might just do something rash. "We won't allow it. I won't allow it."

Marius too, looks infuriated, Cosette's hand resting on his arm as if holding him back. One of Marius' hands rests over his wound almost out of instinct, and Valjean physically holds Gavroche back. Javert momentarily lets go of Enjolras, holding out his truncheon and curving it around in a semi-circle at all of them; it's not a threat, it's a promise.

"One of you touches me, one of you tries to stop me," he says, voice hard as steel. "You will regret it. Your _precious_ leader is a symbol of your failed revolution, and he will pay. And when he pays, _all_ of you pay. Less bloodshed, but still all the impact. He can join Jeanne and Geoffrey in their punishments."

"It is not such a failure if the king is so worried about stamping out the insurgent leaders, is it?" Combeferre asks, seemingly unable to stop himself, his voice maintaining a calm that creates a strangely peaceful feeling inside Enjolras, a feeling bolstering his determination, his courage against the frantic beating of his heart.

"He is not a symbol, Javert," Valjean says, side-stepping cautiously so that he partially blocks Cosette. "He is a flesh and blood young man. And so help me God, you will _not_ take him. You will not harm _any_ of them."

Enjolras' heart jumps into his throat when he hears Valjean's words, even as immense gratitude spreads through him. He cannot allow Valjean to defend him, cannot allow him to put himself in danger, not when Cosette needs him and loves him so dearly; he is the only parent she's ever known, and he cannot take that away from her. Valjean is also the sole reason any of them are alive right now, and without him Enjolras doesn't know what will happen to his remaining friends, and they must _live_. They must live for themselves, must live so that the cause that forged their bonds will continue on, fueled by the memories of those who died into the tomb of the glorious flame of the future.

And Valjean has suffered enough.

Enjolras glances quickly at Combeferre, silently reminding him of his promise, stomach twisting into tangled knots. There is so much they can say to each other without words, and now Combeferre's wise hazel eyes bore into his.

_I will go with you_. _I will share your fate._

Enjolras returns his gaze, his own eyes electrified with the need to protect his friends, to do his duty.

_I know_. _But the others need you._

Combeferre nods, understanding, hating it, but he sees Enjolras' line of reasoning and he will obey this silent imploration, but to Enjolras' eyes, it visibly rips him apart_._

_I am their leader_, Enjolras thinks to himself. _And it is my job to protect them_. _To shield them when I am able. And this is my chance. I knew from the moment I thought of revolution this might be the price I paid._

Enjolras offers his free hand to Javert, holding it out in front of him like a sacrifice.

"If you swear to leave Monsieur Valjean, Cosette, and Gavroche alone, if you swear you won't touch any of my comrades," Enjolras says, looking Javert straight in the eyes, voice completely steady. "Then I will go with you willingly. You have a job to do, after all."

Javert stares at him, eyes widening slightly before regaining the iron-clad purpose within them.

"Hands," Javert says coldly. "Both of them."

"He can't give you both of them," Combeferre protests. "Please. He can't walk without his cane, his wound…"

"Won't matter for much longer, I am certain," Javert says, pushing Combeferre back as he approaches, preventing him from even touching Enjolras. "And a cane is a weapon. Release it, Enjolras. You are under arrest for high treason against His Majesty King Louis-Phillipe of France."

Enjolras keeps his eyes fixed on Javert because he cannot look at his friends, cannot look at Valjean, at Cosette, at Gavroche. He lets go of the cane, hearing it clatter to the floor with an ominous echo, and stands up straight, offering both hands. Javert kicks it away, pulling Enjolras by his wrists, a vicious pain shooting through his leg at the sudden movement, his shoulder throbbing from being dragged forward. Javert removes the manacles from his belt and locks them around Enjolras' wrists, the metal shockingly cold against his skin.

The minute they lock into place, the room erupts in sound.

"You can't!" Courfeyrac exclaims, taking a single step forward. "You take Enjolras you take all of us, inspector. We were all there, we were all involved. Heavily involved."

"Those aren't my orders, boy," Javert says, moving to stand toe to toe with Courfeyrac. "Back. Down."

Courfeyrac however, doesn't move an inch, and when Javert smacks him in the stomach with the truncheon, Enjolras feels the pain himself. Courfeyrac runs at Javert, but Combeferre grabs him, holding him back as he doubles over from the blow.

"Courfeyrac, Courfeyrac, _no_," Enjolras hears Combeferre whisper, grabbing his friend by both arms.

"And were your orders to let me go with Valjean when you came across us?" Marius pipes up, Cosette's hand still resting very firmly in his own. "Was that you following the law? Leave Enjolras be, just let us _be_!"

"We are all culpable," Feuilly says, stepping forward now, before Combeferre, his hands full with a struggling Courfeyrac, can stop him. "We belong _together _whether that's here or in prison. What is one rebel leader to you, what does it matter?"

Enjolras's heart skips a beat when he sees Javert whip out the pistol from his belt, pointing it directly at Feuilly, who doesn't blink, eyes sealed on the policeman.

It's then when Grantaire steps forward in front of Feuilly, directly in the gun's path. He looks terrified, inhaling air in short breaths.

"You can't take him," Grantaire says, voice rough with unshed tears. "I won't _let_ you."

"You defy me?" Javert asks, bold. "As you wish."

He turns quick as lightning back toward Enjolras.

"On your knees," he hisses. "_Now_."

Enjolras hates it, despises it with every ounce of his being, but he drops, a thunderous pain running through his leg. And then suddenly he feels the cold, cruel edge of the pistol jammed against his temple, Javert's hand grasping the top of his jacket.

"One more move from any of you," he says, digging the gun hard into Enjolras' skull and glaring at Grantaire. "And I spill his blood right here, in front of all of you. And then I take his body back to Paris, where its display will discourage any further rebellion, will crush any spark you set in those people you claim to care about so much. Those people who did not rise with you. My superiors want him alive, but they'll understand I had to do my duty if the lot of you didn't cooperate."

There's an audible gasp from Combeferre, but then he regains control of his faculties, voice hoarse with anxiety.

"Grantaire, back up," he orders, still gentle somehow, but urgent, removing one hand from Courfeyrac and pulling Grantaire toward him. "Back _up_."

The mere sight of Enjolras with a gun to his head, the thought of his blood spilling onto the floor right here, is enough for Combeferre's voice to have an effect on Grantaire, a petrified expression overcoming his face as he steps back.

Enjolras sees Valjean move Gavroche into Feuilly's arms, just barely edging away from his place shielding Cosette, eyes locked on Javert.

"Put the gun away Javert," he says, a forced calm in his tone. "Just put it away."

Javert does, hauling Enjolras back up to his feet with another straight shot of pain.

"We're going," Javert says, a note of finality ringing in his voice.

They're almost to the door when a single voice fills the room.

"You're a coward!" Gavroche shouts fighting against Feuilly's grasp, but he cannot quite free himself. "A bloody, spineless _coward_."

"Inspector please." It's Cosette now, speaking, pleading for the first time. "Just let Enjolras go. You were so kind to me that night on the bridge, I…_please_."

Enjolras doesn't miss the barest flicker of regret in Javert's eyes at Cosette's words, but as soon as he looks back and forth between Valjean and Enjolras again, the hard, unforgiving glint returns.

Then everyone starts shouting, specific voices drowned out in the tumult, and Enjolras' fingers push so hard into his palms that there are fingernail indentations in his skin.

They cannot do this, they cannot do this or Javert will shoot them all on the spot, will arrest them.

He can't let that happen.

"Enough!" he shouts, his voice overcoming all the rest, even Valjean's. "_Enough_."

His face is turned away from them, but no one misses the words, even amongst the din of noise. He's capable of bringing silence over a room, that much is clear. It's harsh, he knows, but they have to _stop_, and he is the only one capable of making them.

The room goes deadly silent in a moment, and Enjolras stares at the floor, a single tear sliding down his cheek.

His friends don't see.

Valjean doesn't see.

But he knows Javert does, can feel the inspector's eyes on him.

"As I said, we're going," Javert says again. "We leave for Paris in the morning, boy," he continues lowering his voice. "I hope you'll enjoy your night in the Avignon jail."

Javert opens the door and Enjolras does not look back because it will kill him, he's certain, only hears Valjean's voice once more, broken as shattered glass, but he's trapped, because if he makes one misstep trying to save Enjolras, it may mean the potential loss of them all.

"Javert," the older man tries one more time. "Please."

The inspector doesn't respond, pushing Enjolras out in front of him. There's a scuffle, the sounds of Combeferre and Courfeyrac holding Grantaire back, the sound of Combeferre's barely restrained sob as he tries reasoning with Grantaire.

The door slams shut behind them, the sound of Grantaire _screaming_ his name ringing in Enjolras' ears.

He won't ever forget that sound, that awful, agonizing sound.

But he keeps walking, trying not to limp even though excruciating pain seizes every inch of his leg, because he will show as little weakness to this man as possible, because now that his friends are out of direct danger, Enjolras fears nothing.

Especially not Javert.

Soon they are in the carriage, Enjolras' leg throbbing wildly, and Javert signals to the driver. Enjolras sits across from Javert, feeling helpless with his arms manacled in front of him, useless. The silence between them lays thick, tense, and solid, but Enjolras senses Javert has words for him, senses a strange sort of struggle within the man; he's chased Valjean for years and yet now leaves him free, nearly jumped off a bridge, so Cosette told them all, and yet here he is, still on the job. Something in Javert's mind broke that night, Enjolras thinks, and he can see it brimming in the man's eyes.

"You were foolish to think I wouldn't find you," Javert finally says. "Valjean falters in his old age."

"Is that why you left him alone?" Enjolras asks, treading carefully, because he doesn't want Javert changing his mind and going back for Valjean.

"It's none of your business why I left him," Javert says, unmoved, but Enjolras doesn't miss the flash of disquiet in the policeman's expression. "You should be concerned about your own fate at the moment. So it would serve you best to be quiet."

But Enjolras won't be silenced.

"Have you ever read Rousseau's Social Contract, inspector?" he asks. "Do you even know the basis of what we were fighting for?"

"I have no appreciation for books, but I read because I must," Javert answers, eyes narrowing. "So yes, I have read your precious Social Contract in order that I might know how to better guard this existing society from the likes of you."

"So you will remember the passage," Enjolras continues, "that says 'the people, being subject to the laws, ought to be their author; the conditions of the society ought to be regulated solely by those who come together to form it?' How can you not agree with that as someone who claims to practically worship the law?"

"You naïve, privileged _idiot_," Javert laughs, the sound escaping him similar to a barking dog. "You cannot trust the people to make laws just as you cannot trust them to obey them. Because so many of these people you fight for? They are dishonest scum. Criminals without an ounce of good or justice in them. But you high and mighty students, you think you know about this world, about the people in it…"

"We are not all students," Enjolras interrupts, feeling the rage building within him. "There are workers among us, people who have suffered things I can only imagine, and they stand alongside us for that better world because they have seen the horrors and the dishonesty you mention first hand. But they still fight, they still believe in the good of humanity. And we might be students, we might not have been raised in that world, but we have learned about it, have gone down into it, because those people are just as human as anyone else. It takes a varied group of citizens to create laws that serve everyone, not just a king with a constitution he doesn't follow. That is not the voice of the people."

"Again with the people!" Javert snarls, wolf-like, and Enjolras notices the man's self-controls slipping with every second. "Let me tell you something about those poor, _oppressed _people your friends on the barricade died for, Enjolras; most of them will cheat you as soon as look at you, and they must be dealt with by the firm hand of justice. You say they steal because they are poor, because the government doesn't help them, that the wealthy landowners don't care. Well, I was born into that very world, to parents from the gutter, and I needed no one's help, especially not from some idealistic fools on a barricade. Those people will not rise for you, for some ridiculous dream of freedom."

"They have risen before and induced change," Enjolras argues. "Or did you miss the French Revolution? Or the July Rebellion just two years ago? These people need _help_, all across the world they need help," he says, thinking of Feuilly and his passion for the well-being of nations aside from just his own France. "It is against divine and natural law for one man to rule exclusively over many. The formation of a republic worked in America; they fought for their independence from King George, and they _won_. They have elected officials who are voted in by the people themselves."

"You think yourself aware of the goings on in other countries, do you?" Javert says, the mocking clear in his tone. "America is but a child of a nation; that republic will fall and it will fail, you mark my words."

"I know a great deal about the American Revolutionary War," Enjolras bites back. "My maternal grandmother was an American colonist who moved here after she married a French soldier. And it will _not_ fail. It might falter, but it will not fail."

"It will, because allowing people, allowing the dregs that make up the majority of humanity to have power, makes that inevitable," Javert says, hands grasping his own knees in ire. "These people need to learn to obey the law. They need to learn their _place_. But they won't. You should let go of your pathetic dream. "

"There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good," Enjolras says, reciting Rousseau once more, frustrated with Javert's refusal to listen even the tiniest fraction. "'In a well-governed State there are few punishments not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare.' How can you expect to bring about justice, inspector, when France decays before your eyes?"

"You are blind," Javert snaps, temper rising, hair nearly crackling with his rage. "And you know nothing of the world or how it works. Now quiet! I don't want to hear any more of this ridiculous nonsense."

"I know more than you think," Enjolras persists, very conscious of the blood pumping through his veins. "You guard this corrupt society with its corrupt government and corrupt laws because you…"

"Silence, you God-forsaken brat!" Javert shouts. "You will regret one more word, I promise you."

"…are afraid to be a part of that society," Enjolras says, voice still even, still firm. "Are afraid to admit that maybe you could have used help from some 'idealistic fools', fools who would have helped create a country where it might not have been so hard for a child like you. And that's why you chased Valjean for all these years, because you couldn't stand seeing your black and white views born out of self-hatred thwarted in a man who was a poor criminal turned into a kind, merciful servant of the people. That's why you were so desperate to arrest me, because I fight for everything he represents and everything you despise, and yet you can no longer bring yourself to arrest him because deep inside you know he's right. You know I'm right."

The hard, stinging slap across his face stuns Enjolras, the ring Javert wears on his right hand leaving what he's sure will turn into a bruise. Javert is a large man and the force of the blow sends Enjolras reeling against the side of the carriage, the sudden pain in his cheek reminding him of another slap he'd received on behalf of his beliefs, on behalf of this cause.

The slap that came from his father the last time he'd laid eyes on him, a blow bestowed by a man who had never once shown a penchant for physical violence until that moment.

Out of reflex he raises a hand to touch his cheek, wincing at the tingling feeling of needles pricking his skin. He regains his composure quickly however, looking back at Javert with a gaze that could burn holes into the other man's skin.

"I arrested you because those were my _orders_," Javert says, breathing hard, a thunderstorm of unchecked wrath raging in his eyes. "And my _duty_. And because I detest anything to do with the _word_ rebellion."

Enjolras doesn't answer for a moment, hearing Combeferre's voice in his head, the voice telling him to back off, to save himself anymore physical hurt, anymore danger.

So when he speaks again, it's with a tempered tone.

But he speaks nevertheless.

"Man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains," Enjolras says, repeating the Rousseau he knows so well, that one sentence that lit the flame in him, the flame that will never stop burning. "And that's your trouble, inspector, the difference between you and me; I am willing to break the laws of this country in order to help better it, but you are content to live within the limitations of a monarchy because doing otherwise would mean infringing upon the law. You refuse to acknowledge those chains your views create for you. And until you do that, you will never be free."

Javert leans in until they are almost nose to nose, and just for a moment, Enjolras feels the power of the man's intimidation.

"I do believe it is you who will never be free," he taunts, voice soft and dangerous. "Because for you, there is no _life about to start when tomorrow comes_. You are done, Enjolras. And so is everything you fought for."

"You are wrong," Enjolras says, almost whispering now. "And you always have been."

An odd look passes across Javert's features at his words, and they fall into silence for the remaining five minute distance to the jail. Enjolras cannot step out of the carriage on his own with manacled hands and a bad leg without falling into the dirt, forcing Javert to help him down, seizing his elbow tighter than necessary and allowing him to lean on his arm for the shortest of moments. But even with the assistance, without his cane walking causes sharp pains with every step. Javert still grips his elbow but moves as far away as possible while still maintaining his grasp. This must be a small holding jail, Enjolras thinks, a temporary prison until they send the accused to one of the larger prisons in Avignon proper.

Or in his case, to Paris.

They enter the front door, and Enjolras sees two cells and what looks like an office, one guard sitting inside, eyes flitting instantly toward Enjolras.

"Find who you were looking for inspector?" he asks.

"Yes," Javert answers crisply. "Which cell, sergeant?"

"That one works fine," the other man responds, jabbing his thumb at the cell nearest the wall. "Do you need me to check on the house where you found him? On anyone living there?"

"No," Javert says. "It's taken care of. And we'll be out of your hair in the morning; I couldn't get another stagecoach to Paris any sooner than that."

He takes the offered keys from the officer, pulling Enjolras along and into the cell, the door slamming shut with an echoing clang.

But the rusty key scraping in the lock sounds a thousand times worse.

"Hands," Javert says again, stoic once more.

Enjolras obeys, putting his chained hands through the bars, watching Javert unlock them, and instinctively reaching up to rub the raw skin on his wrists once they're free.

"You can go and rest up if you like inspector," the other officer says. "I can watch him for a while. Doesn't look like much, anyway."

"Thank you," Javert says, eyes meeting Enjolras' own. "But I'll keep watch on him tonight…he's more than he seems, believe me." He reaches up, rubbing the back of his head almost without realizing it, then turns away, leaving Enjolras alone.

Enjolras gazes around the small cell, exhaustion overcoming him swiftly and without warning, but he knows he cannot sleep now, so instead he lays down on the wooden structure he supposes must serve as a cot, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of his friends, Combeferre's restrained sob, Grantaire's scream, Courfeyrac's emotion-ridden anger, Feuilly's pledge that they should always be together, Marius' pleading, Gavroche's shout. He pushes away bright-colored images of them running headlong into the prison, shackled and thrown into his cell.

But they are safe now, and that's what's important, even if they are without him, safe to continue the cause that created their bonds.

Safe with Valjean and Cosette.

Safe with each other.

Safe to live on.

And right now, though he aches for missing them already, aches for missing their friends who died, he contents himself with that knowledge, holding fast to the sounds of their laughter that last night in the Café Musain.


	21. The Darkest Night

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Sorry for the small delay on this, it's been a bit of a hectic week, and this chapter needed to be right before it was posted, but it's here now! Thank you for all the wonderful feedback on the last chapter, that was incredibly appreciated, so, so much! And thank you to everyone reading and following. I know I answered some of the reviews, but hope to try and answer them all this time. Also on a related note, the lovely ariadneslostthread has started an awesome audio fic version of this, and it's posted over on Archive of Our Own (AO3) under this story name and both of our pennames, so please do check it out! Enjoy!

Chapter 21: The Darkest Night

Combeferre can't _breathe_.

But he _has_ to breathe.

He promised Enjolras he would be there for the others, he swore…

He swore…

The pain in his chest grows sharp, the very edge of a knife twisting deep within, and every time he breathes a rush of agony stab through him. It's as if the very likely loss of Enjolras multiplies the pain of all the friends they've already lost, as if it fully ripped open the wound of his grief. The tiniest sliver of hope bubbles in his chest, the hope that they can save Enjolras somehow, but the grief, the terror, threatens it with every passing second.

Enjolras…

He can barely even _think_ his best friend's name right now, it hurts so badly.

Valjean went upstairs and into the study mere minutes after Javert dragged Enjolras out, an power in his eyes Combeferre has never seen before, bidding them not to leave the house under any circumstance, that he needed a bit to think of a way to get Enjolras back, of a way to still keep them all safe once he executes his plan; he's going to the jail at daybreak when he believes the guard will be lowest, when he hopes he'll find Javert alone.

Find Javert alone before he departs for Paris with Enjolras in tow.

But convincing, tricking, or escaping from Javert remains the problem.

And so Combeferre sits on the sofa.

He sits on the sofa and tries to breathe.

He doesn't realize how stuck in his head he is until he feels Courfeyrac's familiar touch on his face, turning it toward him.

"Combeferre," his friend says softly, eyes rimmed red from unabashed tears, while Combeferre's eyes are still dry because somehow tears evade him, shock choking that particular human emotion. "Combeferre you aren't breathing properly. Exhale, my friend, exhale, please, you've got to."

"I'm…" Combeferre says, swallowing the taste of a lie on his lips; there's no point in protesting he's fine because how on earth would they ever believe him?

He wants to do something but he doesn't know _how_, doesn't know _what_.

Courfeyrac takes his hands, rubbing circles into the skin, and a rush of hot, unbridled affection for Courfeyrac overcomes him. Combeferre looks up, watching Feuilly try and whisper words of some kind of comfort to Grantaire, whose eyes are wide and staring as if he's looking at nothing.

Cosette sits next to Gavroche, an arm around the little boy who looks as if he's in shock; Combeferre's never seen Cosette so anxious, and that's saying quite a bit, considering all that's happened since they emerged in her life.

"Grantaire," Feuilly says, crouched down in front Grantaire's chair. "It's…it's not alright, I won't even say that because it's the furthest thing from the truth, but just talk, talk if that helps. God, your hands are trembling."

"I haven't had…" Grantaire says through gritted teeth, accepting Feuilly's hands when he offers them. "…had a drink aside from one glass of wine at each dinner in four days. I'm trying to…cut back. Just some slight withdrawal, it… doesn't matter…what about Enjolras?"

"You're sweating, too," Feuilly mutters, his voice cracking at the sound of Enjolras' name, quite unable to contain his emotion, and Combeferre sees the mild panic pooled in the fan-maker's eyes.

Combeferre feels a hand wring his heart, because Feuilly's second family, the only family he's had since he lost his parents as a child, dwindles by the day.

"It doesn't matter," Grantaire says again, pulling Feuilly's hands closer. "Feuilly, what are we going…Enjolras…" his words trail off, incoherent, desperate, and tinged with panic, the light in his eyes almost wholly extinguished.

"It does matter, Grantaire," Combeferre whispers, concentrating on the feel of Courfeyrac's fingers moving on the skin of his hands, because otherwise he very much feels as if he'll be sick, but he latches on to this chance to free his psyche for a moment, something else he can focus on apart from the memory of watching Enjolras' face hardening into marble against his current of feeling, even as passionate, almost terrifying emotion flashed in his blue eyes. Combeferre cannot stop hearing Enjolras' voice ring through the room.

_Enough._

"It matters that you take care of yourself, that we take care of each other," Combeferre says, fighting the unsteadiness of his voice. "It's what Enjolras wanted."

"What he wants, you mean," Courfeyrac corrects, but he's tender still. He ceases rubbing circles into Combeferre's skin, instead pulling both hands up and interlacing his fingers with Combeferre's own."He's not lost to us just yet, Combeferre. We do not give up. I…I cannot."

"Courfeyrac is right," Marius says, finally speaking, which draws Cosette's attention away from her pacing, and she comes over, joining them. "Valjean may yet come up with a plan to thwart Javert."

"He will," Cosette says, almost unconsciously taking Marius' hand. "I know my Papa, and he will. But I also know he will not want any of you following him, won't want any of you in danger."

"If any of us are harmed it would be an insult to Enjolras' sacrifice," Combeferre says, sensing something in Marius and Cosette's tones.

"We must follow Valjean when he goes," Marius says, firm. It is not a tone Marius uses often, but Combeferre can't help but remember him at the barricade, torch in hand, voice thundering over the whole area, nearly as formidable as Enjolras, at least for a moment.

_Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!_

Crises are apparently well-suited for quick, resolute thinking on Marius', part, but Combeferre cannot allow this, cannot stop hearing Enjolras' voice again in his head.

"I know it has pained you ever since I asked, but it is vital. Promise me."

"Not directly," Marius continues, determined. "We wait however long we think best, and then we go gage the situation."

"No, Marius," Combeferre says, sounding more intense that he means to, so he softens his voice at Marius' surprised expression. "We cannot go after Valjean, I cannot allow any of you to get hurt, especially not in wake of Enjolras' sacrifice. I _cannot._"

"Combeferre," Marius says, frustrated, desperate. "We cannot leave Enjolras behind. We cannot let him go."

Tears finally prick Combeferre's eyes and he feels a few spill down his cheeks. In the same moment Courfeyrac's hands are on his face, turning it toward him.

_You have to be willing to let me go._

Combeferre doesn't just feel sick now; he's going to be sick, he's certain. He gulps in a breath, telling himself to calm down, that this is just his psyche's reaction to an intensely traumatic situation, that he must maintain strength for the others.

Only his body won't cooperate.

But Courfeyrac, ever in tune with people, notices. He seizes an empty vase, and puts it under Combeferre's chin just in time. Courfeyrac's hand rests on Combeferre's back now, and it relaxes him. Combeferre flushes in embarrassment, but it's irrational, he knows; one can't help their body revolting against them. Once it's clear he won't be sick again, Courfeyrac moves around, facing him.

"Enjolras asked you to protect the rest of us," Courfeyrac says, and it isn't a question, the puzzle pieces coming together behind his eyes. "And that's why you didn't try and go after Javert. He asked you to let him go."

"I…" Combeferre tries, but Courfeyrac already knows the answer, so he doesn't even bother with a lie. "At first I did not agree with him, but the moment Javert walked in that door I saw his line of reasoning, I couldn't deny him Courfeyrac, Javert was…he was utterly unhinged. Enjolras was right, Javert would have hurt or arrested every last one of us if Enjolras didn't hand himself over…I…"

"It's alright," Courfeyrac says, resting his forehead against Combeferre's, exuding the emotional strength Combeferre and Enjolras always heartily appreciated; he centers them. "I trust the both of you without question and I understand why both of you did what you did. I expect we all do. But I'm also inclined to agree with Marius in this instance; following Valjean is different than accosting Javert in this house would have been; we've run from gendarmes, been in rallies accidentally turned riots…I believe we can attempt this."

"But I…" Combeferre starts.

"Promised Enjolras, I know. And I would not have you break that promise," Courfeyrac says, patient as Combeferre usually is. "But it would be my guess that you only submitted to one part of that promise; protecting us, which you are capable of doing even while we follow Valjean. I cannot imagine a day when you would promise to let Enjolras go."

Combeferre emits a strange half laugh, half sob the he cannot control, sounding hysterical to his own ears, feeling Courfeyrac squeeze his hands, still not releasing them.

Courfeyrac discovered a loophole in his promise to Enjolras, because of course he did, he's a lawyer. Cosette kneels down in front of him, eyes full to bursting with compassion, and for the first time, Combeferre thinks that her facial features are so similar to Enjolras' that she could very well be his sister.

"You can keep your promise to Enjolras and still keep us all safe," she says, putting a gentle hand on the side of his face, which ever so slightly eases the feeling that he's being torn in two. "I know you don't want to betray that promise, Combeferre, we all do, all know how much it means to you, how much Enjolras means to you. But I also know you want to save him so badly, I see it in every inch of you. I suspect everyone here will follow your word on this so that you may do both."

Combeferre nods, squeezing her shoulder and looking back up at Marius, at all of them.

"If we do this," he says, serious. "Then all of you must listen to me. If I say run, you run. If I say hide, you hide. I want to save Enjolras more than anything, but I will also not let his sacrifice go to waste."

"We will," Feuilly answers, and Grantaire nods his agreement along with Courfeyrac and Marius. "Whatever you say, we will follow."

Combeferre smiles at Feuilly, then his gaze rests on Marius for a moment, eyes running down to the wounded area on his abdomen. "I am incredibly thankful for your idea and your clear-headedness in this situation," he continues, sincere. "But you cannot go with us."

"What?" Marius questions, a bit indignant.

"You are injured," Combeferre says quietly. "You cannot run, and you cannot hold up well against further injury should Javert see us. Your presence creates danger for both Enjolras and yourself. And I would not see you hurt again, Marius, especially not when you are still recovering."

"But…"

"He's right, Marius," Cosette interrupts. "I hadn't thought about it with all of this going on, but he's right."

"I want to help," Marius persists. "All of you were my friends when my grandfather and I were estranged, when I had no one else in the world. I want to help."

"You have," Combeferre says, grasping the younger man's hand tightly. "You have helped rally us again. Helped rally me."

Marius sighs but then nods, squeezing Combeferre's hand with the tiniest of smiles, and then Combeferre looks at Cosette, who looks as if she already knows his words.

"Cosette, I would take you with us, but your father…he would never recover if something happened to you," Combeferre says. "And I'm sure Marius could use your company while we're gone."

"I do not believe Inspector Javert would hurt me intentionally, though I am not sure why," she says. "But I take your point Combeferre; he is out of his mind, I saw it in his eyes. I will stay here with Marius. And then hopefully mollify Papa when all of you return, because he will not be pleased that you put yourself in danger, but I also believe it's time he learned he is not alone anymore."

Combeferre smiles at Cosette, this courageous, intelligent, open-hearted young woman he now certainly counts as his friend. He's shaky still, but the eternal hope Enjolras always instilled in him takes root as his comrades, his family, gather closer around him and talk through the details of their plans.

Except none of them notice their youngest comrade, one of the bravest among them, slip out of the drawing room.

* * *

Gavroche is only alone in the small parlor down the hall from the drawing for a few moments before someone enters the room.

It's Cosette.

"Gavroche are you alright, sweetheart?" she asks. "You left the room."

Normally Gavroche wouldn't put up with such endearments, but he likes Cosette, she's sweet, doesn't treat him like he's a silly kid, and sneaks him pastries when Toussaint and Madame Bellard aren't looking.

"I'm worried 'bout Enjolras," Gavroche mumbles. "Why did he go? Why didn't he fight? Why didn't they all fight? Enjolras never gives up."

Cosette drops down to Gavroche's level, kneeling on the floor before the sofa he's tentatively perched on; he's still uncomfortable with the formality and luxury of indoor life, which is evident in his posture. Cosette wipes his face with her handkerchief and Gavroche sniffs, smiling.

"Enjolras didn't have a choice, Gavroche. He was protecting us all. Inspector Javert is…he's not...well. He believes arresting Enjolras will right some wrongs in his own life. He's dangerous, Gavroche, and he might have shot Feuilly, or Enjolras, or any of us, and Enjolras would never, could never allow that. It's just who he is."

"Enjolras is brave," Gavroche says quietly. "But Inspector Javert is a bully, never cut us gamins a break."

Cosette smiles, "Enjolras is the bravest. But he was afraid too, afraid for all of us. Bravery isn't the lack of fear, it's how you react to the fear, what you choose to do with it. Does that make sense?"

Gavroche nods, understanding. "But why did the others let him go...Javert was outnumbered, we could have got the gun from him, and I've seen Grantaire win a fist fight! Why...why did...why didn't Combeferre do something, why did he stop Courfeyrac and Feuilly? Combeferre can do anything! You should all them books he reads Cosette, I've never seen so many books, and he's Enjolras' best friend."

"Oh, Gavroche, he did do something," Cosette answers, stroking some of the frustrated tears away from his eyes with her thumbs "He did the bravest thing anyone could have done, just as brave as Enjolras himself. Enjolras asked him to protect all of us, no matter the cost, and that meant letting Enjolras go."

"Or Javert would have hurt Courfeyrac, or Feuilly or Grantaire or Marius?" Gavroche asks.

"Most likely," Cosette answers sadly. "Or arrested them."

Gavroche takes a shaky breath and wipes his face with his cuffs. "We have to get him back."

"Yes, we do. And we will. But Combeferre gave Enjolras his word, and he won't endanger any of you lightly, and I think he could use some support right now, so he knows he can protect the rest of us and get Enjolras back."

Gavroche nods, pushes himself up off the sofa, holding his arm out to Cosette as the older boys do, and she smiles, accepting.

"I'm trying to be brave," Gavroche tells her. "I'm as brave as Combeferre and Enjolras and I can do hard things too, I used to run errands all the time, and Enjolras even let me have a rifle at the barricade. I'll do whatever Combeferre asks."

He leads her from the parlor and back into the drawing room where Marius, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Grantaire still look lost and bereft, like a body missing a limb.

A group missing its most beloved chief.

Their soul.

Combeferre is calmer now, but still pale and visibly shaking, as is Grantaire.

Gavroche releases Cosette's arms and goes directly to Combeferre, standing in front of him for a moment before putting his arms around Combeferre's neck. When he pulls back he stands up straight, looking Combeferre in the eye.

"I want to help." he says gravely. "I'll do anything you need, I promise, anything to help get Enjolras back."

Combeferre's lips quirk upward ever so much; he is touched and can only pull Gavroche back into his arms again.

"Thank you, Gavroche." He murmurs into his ear. "Thank you."

And so they wait for Valjean's departure.

Wait for daybreak

* * *

A ruckus from the entrance of the prison shocks Enjolras from his thoughts, so deep and involved he'd almost forgotten where he was.

If only.

Dear _God _if only he could banish the sound of Combeferre's bitten back sob, of Grantaire's agony ridden scream, his name echoing through the air with a searing pain. Nor can he forget Gavroche's tear-ridden shout, cannot forget the uncontrolled fire in Courfeyrac's eyes, cannot clear the unmistakable noise of Javert cocking his gun at Feuilly's face, cannot wash away Valjean's quiet desperation, Marius' intense fury, Cosette's panic.

He can't forget a single moment, his mind colored with unrelenting memory.

_You could escape_, he says to himself. _You could try_.

But he knows there isn't a way out of this jail cell without alerting someone, the building is so small, and where would he go besides? He cannot go back to Valjean and his friends because that endangers them, the very thing he's fought so hard against. He's been so focused on making sure he succeeded in protecting them that the future laid out before him seems almost incomprehensible.

If a future exists for him at all.

"Lemme go!" a distinctly female voice exclaims. "I know how this works, you don't have to be so rough."

"You were fighting," the voice of a new police officer says, gruff with irritation. "And you resisted arrest. Pardon me if I'm a bit concerned you'll run at first chance. Which cell, Lieutenant?"

"You can chuck her in there with the prisoner from Paris, if it's alright with Inspector Javert," the lieutenant answers, almost lazily. "Leaves the other cell free for any problem prisoners. Boy'll be gone in the morning anyway."

"It's fine with me," Javert says, standing up and greeting the other officer. "Inspector Javert of the Paris police."

"Inspector," the officer replies with a nod. He takes the keys, unlocking the door to Enjolras' cell and tossing the woman inside. "What brings you to Avignon? Anything to do with the rebellions in Paris?

"Yes," Javert says, glancing back over at Enjolras, grey eyes coated in sheaths of rock hard ice melting with madness. "This one's suspected of being one of the rabble-rousers, so I'm taking him back to Paris in the morning where he'll stand as a public example for anyone else who thinks insurrection creates justice. Or anything other than chaos."

"Execution?" the officer asks, an odd expression on his face as he looks at Enjolras, almost as if he doesn't believe him capable of being a rebel leader.

"That depends on the trial," Javert says, tone clipped but sure. "One of the other surviving leaders was sentenced to death, one to life in prison. Although this one was rather difficult to locate, and I don't imagine the court, not to mention the king, will possess much sympathy."

Enjolras snorts softly, but Javert doesn't hear him. He fists his hands by his sides, resisting the overpowering urge to shout at these police officers, to shout at Javert; he wants to tell them that they are not free, that they apathetically and willingly accept a government chaining it's citizens, enslaving them, without ever needing physical manacles, dictates their lives without their input, dictates their worth, robs them of their humanity.

They are not alive, not truly, not like this, and realizing the power of freedom, the power of fighting for that freedom, for the beautiful glory of life and the future, just believing in it the tiniest fraction, that's the first step toward life blossoming within their hearts, within their souls. Enjolras feels significantly alive right now, feels alive with pain yes, alive with just a dusting of fear, but also feels alive with love for his friends, for his family, alive with passion for every last person in the country for which he fights so hard.

_Love, thine is the future._

Empathy for every last suffering person burgeons in his soul, a wave of it crashing down on his head as he watches the activity in front of him, watches the woman struggle against the officer.

"What happened with that one?" the lieutenant asks, nodding his head at Enjolras' new cell mate.

"Fight with one of her customers in the park," the new officer replies. "Keep her in here for a few days, teach her a lesson."

"He stole from me!" the woman exclaims. "What did you expect me to do, monsieur?"

He waves her off, tipping his hat to Javert and the lieutenant before heading back out on his patrol. Enjolras watches him go, then turns back to the woman before him; she's a few inches shorter than he but desperately thin, long auburn hair hanging halfway down her back in limp curls, skin slightly tan from time spent outdoors.

"Bastards," she mutters, looking up at Enjolras now, noticing him, it seems, for the first time, eyeing his nicely made clothes with surprise. "And who might you be? Don't usually see your kind in here."

"My kind?" Enjolras asks, standing up and gesturing for her to sit down.

"Bourgeoisie types," she says, accepting his offer and sitting down on the edge of the wooden cot. He jerks in surprise when she pulls at his hand so that he's also sitting down. "What's your name?"

"I..." he answers, feeling awkward as takes his hand back. "Rene," he finally says, feeling as if perhaps he ought not to share his last name, though it's likely a moot point now. "And you?"

"Isabelle," she says, resting one hand on her hip, which she's cocked to one side. "I heard them say you were a…what was it? A rabble-rouser? Should I be frightened, monsieur?"

"I shouldn't think so," he replies, meeting her curious gaze evenly. He gets the sense that she's attempting flirtation, though this is certainly an odd setting for such a thing. But then again she is quite unlike the grisettes who often made eyes at him in Paris, whether he noticed or one his friends pointed it out, and perhaps she simply wishes a friend in this distinctly unfriendly place.

"Well that's a relief," she tells him, seemingly intrigued. "I was a bit worried, what with you being a big-city rebel and what not you might be dangerous. Heard about those rebellions in Paris, all those people died, apparently. All over the city. Did you…did you kill anyone?"

It's not a judgment, he knows, not on her part at least, but he hears his own voice in his head, hears its severity, sees Le Cabuc's triumphant face morphing into terror.

_Collect your thoughts. Pray or think. You have one minute._

He shuts his eyes for a moment against the memory, against the questions ringing in his own head. Again, he hears his own voice, but this time he's speaking to his comrades. To his friends.

_Citizens, what that man did horrible, and what I have done is terrible. He killed, that is why I killed him. I was forced to do it, for the insurrection must have its discipline…we are the priests of the republic, we are the sacramental host of duty, and none must be able to calumniate our combat._

He remembers the artillery sergeant, remembers his heart clenching excruciatingly in his chest, remembers the tears in his own eyes, remembers Combeferre's words, remembers his own words at the top of the barricade.

_Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice?_

Progress, Combeferre always said, was humanity's natural state, and Enjolras learned that he wholeheartedly agreed. But Enjolras also knew that progress sometimes would not begin unless kick-started by revolution, by rebellion, by sacrifice and by death, light spilling forth from that darkness, the sun rising over the night of the bloody barricade.

And yet now he questions himself, judges himself. But light springs from darkness, that is the nature of things. Fighting, terrible as it is, arises for the purpose of creating that first pinprick of light in the black, then hands it to Progress, which spreads the light to all the corners of the earth. He wishes for a world, believes in a world in which fighting and revolutions are not necessary to set progress ablaze, but that is not the current world, not the world he so firmly lives in now.

"Monsieur?" Isabelle questions, a hint of concern in her voice.

"My apologies," Enjolras says quickly, recovering himself. "I was off in my head a bit. I…yes. I'm afraid I did…I did take the lives of my fellow countrymen. There wasn't...much choice."

"But so is the nature of a rebellion, I'd gather," she says, surveying him, an intelligent glint in her eyes. Then they widen in what looks oddly like recognition. "I…you actually look a bit familiar."

"I don't know how that's possible mademoiselle," he says, bewildered. "I've never been in Avignon before."

"The paper," she whispers, revelation dawning on her face. "I saw traveling merchant men from Paris and they had papers back a few weeks ago and I picked one off the ground when they left it since I can read a little and I saw that sketch of your face. It took me a minute but I knew I'd seen that face before. And the men talkin' they said people in Paris were calling you the 'avenging angel' or something like that. But they kept arguing over whether or not you were crazy and I couldn't make sense out of the politics after that."

Enjolras rather feels as if he's been socked in the stomach, and he knows now that even if he somehow miraculously escapes from Javert's clutches, that he will always lead the life of a fugitive.

That life that Valjean knows so well.

A life turned upside down with false names and invented pasts and always turning to glance behind you.

_But he still did so much good with that life, so much good_, Enjolras tells himself, hoping it calms the rapid beating of his heart.

Suddenly Isabelle winces, hand pressing to her side. "Damn."

"Are you hurt madmoiselle?" he asks looking down where her hand rests and almost unthinkingly lifting the side of her coat. "You're bleeding, did someone stab you?"

"I thought I felt something," she says, removing her hand, which is now smeared with red, meaning she's bled through her chemise, her shift, and her corset. "But I was so involved in getting that man off me that I didn't really even notice."

Enjolras rises, going toward the bars and speaking to Javert and the lieutenant.

"This woman is hurt," he tells them, hands grasping the bars tightly. "She's been stabbed and needs a doctor."

"I'm sure it's just a nick," the lieutenant says, nonchalant. "Get prostitutes in here with that sort of thing all the time, and they're always fine."

"It's not a _nick_," Enjolras says, frustrated, focusing on Javert now. "You can't just deny her medical care."

"Quiet," Javert says forcefully, putting down the newspaper he's reading. "Or I think you'll find I have ways of making sure you are. Or do I need to remind you about that bruise on your face?"

Enjolras narrows his eyes, turning away and heading back to the woman, who's slid off her light coat, gingerly touching the wound, red stains creeping across the material of her corset.

"Madmoiselle Isabelle," he says, thinking of Combeferre, of Joly, of their thoughts, their actions in this situation. "I need to take a look at your wound, see if there's anything I can do."

She quirks an eyebrow. "Are you asking me to disrobe, Monsieur Rene?"

"I need to look at your wound," he repeats, feeling distinctly awkward.

"So not a proposition then?"

"I'm afraid not," he says dryly, but still kind.

"Pity," she says, standing with her back to him now, but he can see a wry smile on her lips. "You might just be the prettiest man I've ever laid eyes on."

"I'm certain that's not true," he mumbles. "I'm…rather not sure how to undo this."

She leads him through the process of undoing the corset and finally she's out of it, leaving her in her shift and skirt. With the pressure of the corset removed, the blood flows more freely than ever and Enjolras feels like he's been slapped in the face again, feels a deluge of unchecked anxiety pour down on him, anxiety that he uncharacteristically cannot quite control when it hits. A bright flash of the barricade strikes like lightning in his head at the sight of the blood; he sees Bossuet fall, blood spurting from his two bullet wounds, hears Joly's cry at the gruesome sight.

He shakes his head, swallowing back the emotions, the memories, the thoughts.

_Focus._

_Just focus._

"The material's cheap and it's ruined anyway," she says, bringing him back into the moment. "You can just rip a hole in it to look at the wound, if need be."

He pulls at the material and sure enough she's right and the seam rips easily, and he gets a good look at the injury.

It's even worse than he suspected, and from what he's learned about anatomy from Combeferre, the knife possibly struck a vital organ and blood flows forth.

"Can you lie down, mademoiselle?" he asks, keeping his voice calm as he's heard Combeferre and Joly do countless times for patients and he aches for missing them, aches for Joly's unceasing cheerful ease with his patients, aches for Combeferre's understanding, his almost super-human concentration. "Hold on just a moment."

He retreats back to the cell door, limp more pronounced than ever without his cane, voice desperate this time, a hint of fury seeping in.

"This is not just a _nick_," he says again, putting his face against the bars and looking at Javert and the Lieutenant. "This woman is…" he cuts off momentarily, hearing Combeferre and Joly's voices in his head telling him not to scare her. "This woman is _injured_, she needs a doctor."

"Enjolras, back _off_," Javert barks, standing now. "You are causing a ruckus."

"I will not," Enjolras replies ferociously, staring Javert down as the inspector walks toward him. "You cannot ignore this woman, she's hurt."

Javert reaches the door, raising his eyebrows slightly when he eyes the woman. He locks eyes with Enjolras, not breaking off when he asks the lieutenant to retrieve some cloths and bandages.

"That's not _enough_," Enjolras protests. "She needs a doctor. I am not one."

"Do you care to patch her up or shall I?" Javert hisses, his tone suggesting him doing so would not be pleasant for anyone. "I'm sure you've learned enough from you medical student comrades to patch up a simple knife wound?"

The intentionally hurtful words slash through him, and Enjolras blanches internally at the agony he knows Combeferre must be experiencing right now, knows how he would feel were their positions switched. He takes the supplies from Javert, turning back to Isabelle, who lays on the wooden bed, whiter now that just a few moments ago.

"Never thought I'd have such a handsome young man taking care of me," she says, a weak smile playing at her lips. "Must be my lucky day."

"I think you are hardly much older than myself," he says lowering to his knees beside her, pain crushing through his leg, a dull ache in his shoulder. "If at all," he continues, almost in a whisper. "If you permit it, I'd like to try and stem this bleeding."

"So very polite monsieur," she says. "And kind. Yes, I permit it."

He takes the towel, pressing it firmly against her side, but not too hard, as Combeferre taught him afterhe barricades in 1830 when he was helping with the wounded. She winces again, jerking back a bit.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I know it's painful but I've got to stem this bleeding."

He holds the towel there, but the blood just keeps coming, slowly soaking the towel through, so he reaches for another.

"Can you lift yourself up for just a moment?" he asks. "I want to wrap this towel around you, that might help this process. I can't even attempt to bandage it until this ceases a little bit."

She nods, and he wraps the towel around her middle, and the red liquid still flows, darkening the white material and leaking onto Enjolras' shirt. He wipes his bloodied hands on his trousers, unrolling the bandages now, but soon feels a hand resting over his.

"I don't know that that's going to help me now, Rene," she says softly. "Or should I say Rene Enjolras. That's a pretty name. A pretty name for a man who looks like an angel."

"You flatter me mademoiselle," he says, feeling his breath hitching in his chest and swallowing back his panic, etching calm into his face when he turns around once more.

"I cannot stop this bleeding!" he exclaims. "_Please_, she needs a doctor. This is not a game and this is not an escape attempt, she needs help that I cannot provide."

The lieutenant and Javert appear at the door now, the lieutenant's eye widening at the sight of the growing amount of blood.

"Go, lieutenant," Javert says, jerking his head toward the door. "Are there any doctors near here?"

"One in the immediate area," he answers. "All the rest about two miles away in Avignon, but I'll go to Dr. Bellaire's residence and see if he's home."

Enjolras watches him go, feeling Javert's eyes on him, but turns at the sounds of Isabelle's voice.

"Rene Enjolras," she says, a feigned flirtation in her voice. "Would you please come sit with me?"

"I need to bandage this up," he says, looking at the wound and furrowing his eyebrows. "I…"

"Just sit with me and wait for the doctor?" she asks, pulling the towel a bit more tightly around herself, but the blood stain grows, red inching further and further across the material. "I'm…I'm cold."

Enjolras instantly removes his jacket, laying it across her, and sits down again, surprised when she moves, resting her head on his uninjured leg. Uninvited emotion swoops through his stomach; he thinks of his friends, thinks of his mother, thinks of how he would treat them in this situation, and lightly strokes her hair. She takes his free hand and though again he's surprised by her actions, he doesn't let go.

Because she might die.

She might die before that doctor gets here because these policemen didn't care enough for the fate of a mere prostitute.

Of a mere human being.

He senses Javert's presence still, knows the inspector's eyes are on him, but he's fallen oddly silent, watching them a very strange mixture of terror and lunacy manifesting within them. There are ghosts of something gathered in his darkening expression.

He's drawn back into the moment by Isabelle's voice.

"So what were you fighting for then?" she asks, clearly distracting herself from the pain, voice growing weaker. "Looks like you got pretty banged up; I see that bandage on your shoulder peeping up from your shirt, and you've been limping."

"You're quite the observant one," he remarks, smiling sadly down at her.

"Maybe, but you still haven't answered my question. What were you fighting for."

Enjolras sighs, doesn't know how to put what they were fighting for into a brief paragraph, into a few words. Words are powerful things, but now is not the time for grand speeches.

"Freedom," he says simply. "For every man and woman."

"For someone…like me?" she questions, tears forming in her eyes from the pain, her hand ghosting across his face. He's all she has in this moment that might be her last, and that cuts into him with a sadness so deep that he almost cannot bear it; this woman is the very face of what he fights for, what all of his friends fought for, a woman locked into selling herself because she has no money, no options, no choice because of a monarchy and an aristocracy that holds sway over an entire country.

"For someone like you, yes," he tells her. "Especially for someone like you."

He still feels Javert's eyes on him but the inspector remains strangely, absolutely silent, and Enjolras doesn't look up; he cannot do anything but wait for the doctor now and he's not sure he's ever felt this helpless. At least at the barricade he could fight, he could do his best to protect his friends.

But then the barricade forms in his mind again and he sees Bahorel fall, remembers running toward him as he was bayoneted fighting two National Guard soldiers, but he couldn't get there in time, couldn't protect him. He almost laughs, because since when had Bahorel ever needed protecting, but Enjolras wanted to protect him nevertheless.

"Do you know any song about freedom, Enjolras?" Isabelle asks, pulling him into the present once again, her voice nothing more than a breathy whisper now, at least half the towel wrapped around her soaked with blood. "I should like to…to hear about freedom."

Enjolras searches his mind, hating how frantic he feels, how completely out of control, but the only song he can immediately thing of is an American song his grandmother taught him as a child.

"You want me to…sing to you?" he asks.

"My father used to sing to me when I was a little girl," she say, eyes falling closed. "He had a beautiful voice. It…it makes me feel warm inside, hearing people sing."

"Alright," he says, eyes flickering up toward Javert for the briefest moment; the inspector pants, breaths coming in quick, rapid succession as if he can't get enough air, his eyes wide. But he doesn't move, doesn't speak. "I shall sing to you. Though I don't know how talented a singer I am."

"I suspect your voice sounds a bit like a lovely hymn," she tells him. "Please sing."

And so despite the fact that he feels awkward, that he feels he simply isn't the right person for this, he's the only one, and he won't deny this poor woman anything. His voice floats into the air, the notes of the song curling into the air around them.

"Should the Tempests of War overshadow our land, Its bolts could not rend Freedom's temple asunder," he begins, eyes burning with tears he absolutely will not shed. "For, unmoved, at the portal, would George Washington stand, and repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder!"

He stops for a moment when she goes still.

"Keep…going," she says, grasping his hand so tightly it almost hurts. "Please keep singing, your voice is beautiful."

"His sword, from the sleep, of its scabbard would leap and conduct, with its point, ev'ry flash to the deep!" he continues, eyes never moving from her face when she opens her own once more, and they're clouded with pain. "And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, while the earth bears a plant and the sea rolls a wave."

His voice dies off, and she holds his gaze for a few seconds before her eyes fall closed, her body going unnervingly still. He leans over toward her face, desperate for the sounds of breathing.

But there are none.

She's gone, died right here in his arms.

Her hand slides out of his own, and he turns both his palms over, seeing them covered and slick with blood.

_Slick with blood…_

Enjolras sees Jehan fall in another flash, sees the bullet pierce his heart, sees red bloom, flowerlike, across his unceasingly brave friend's shirt, the light of the future Jehan always believed in still in his eyes as he falls. He feels his own feet slipping on the stones; he cannot gain footing, cannot reach Jehan.

In what feels like an out of body moment, Enjolras ever so gently moves Isabelle's head from his leg, walking rapidly toward the cell door, ignoring the bullet of pain piercing his leg with every single step.

"Do you see what you've _done_!" he roars, breathing hard, eyes dry now because he is simply beyond tears. "You have killed this woman, killed her because she wasn't worth it to you! Do you see what you've _done_?"

"She was injured when she got here," Javert protests, his voice devoid of its usual harsh, terrifying quality, sounding almost childish, sounding afraid, the ghosts waltzing across his eyes now. "She likely would have died had she been here or out on the street."

"You wouldn't call for a doctor!" Enjolras shouts, slamming against the bars, heart beating wildly in his chest. "You wouldn't take it seriously because she's just another one of those 'filthy criminal scum' you despise so much! Are you pleased she's dead now? Are you _happy_?"

"Enjolras hold your _tongue_," Javert says, voice hardening now. "Be quiet or…"

"Or _what_?" Enjolras interrupts, voice rough with wrath, and he's quite literally never felt so out of control, the rage running through him like his own life's blood. "You'll arrest me? Done. Kill me? That's likely my sentence already."

"She would have died anyway and there's nothing you could have done," Javert repeats. "It's the nature of her work, one of the risks she took."

Enjolras hears the door open, hears the low voices of the lieutenant and another man he assumes must be the doctor, but he doesn't care, doesn't cease.

"So she's just another disposable person to you?" he questions, voice rising with every syllable. "Just another human life for the trash, another life that doesn't matter? She's a _person_, Javert, just like you or me, a person who didn't deserve her fate, didn't deserve having to sell her body to merely survive and not starve in the streets. She must have a family, a mother, a father, a child for all you know and you just let her _die_."

Something Enjolras doesn't understand flares in Javert's eyes, and Enjolras' own rage boils over the top like lava in a volcano, spilling around him in white-hot puddles when he hears Javert's voice asking the lieutenant for the keys to the cell. The door flies open hard, banging back against the iron bars, and Javert comes directly for him, seizing Enjolras by the shirt.

"I did not let her die," Javert says, tone deadly. "I believe the knife did that. Say one more word…"

"You refuse to show even the _smallest_ ounce of mercy to your fellow man," Enjolras says, unafraid, almost spitting the words now. "You refuse to see the need for change, and you allow the people you're supposed to protect to live in darkness, under constant night, because of your own fear, your own self-loathing."

"Be quiet, boy!" Javert exclaims. "Just…"

"No!" Enjolras shouts, a blue wildfire blazing through his eyes. "Let go of me, just let _go_."

He twists away from Javert, entire body trembling from pain, exhaustion, and fury, unthinkingly pushing against the inspector with his good leg, his bad leg giving out from under him and he goes crashing to the floor.

"Inspector," the kindly looking doctor says, entering the cell. "Do you want me to give him some Laudanum?"

"_No_," Enjolras says, fighting against Javert who now has him pinned to the ground so that he cannot move, cannot fight with his injuries. "You can't drug me, that woman is _dead_, don't you see, she's _dead_. And more people like her will die more every day if this doesn't _stop_."

The barricade comes alive in his mind again; he sees the spattering blood, feels it on his face, hears the screaming, the gunshots, the unrelenting courage of his friends as they fought.

"Son, you need to take this," the doctor says, kneeling down next to Javert.

"You can silence me," Enjolras says. "But you can't silence the revolution, can't silence the voices that call from the future."

There are hands pushing his cheeks in now and forcing his mouth open, the liquid burning down his throat, his vision blurring, he slides out just enough from under Javert, a fist flying toward the inspector's face, but the man catches his wrist.

"More," Javert demands. "Give him more. You don't understand what he's capable of, and I need him knocked out right now or we'll never get to Paris in once piece. How long does it last?"

"It won't last until morning," the doctor says, eyes running over Enjolras' form with sympathetic eyes. "But he'll still be quite groggy. And I doubt he'll have much energy after this."

Enjolras shakes his head, but he's shaking with effort, and then there are more hands on his face, more burning liquid down his throat until blackness overtakes him, sending him spiraling into unconsciousness.

* * *

An hour later, after the lieutenant removes the prostitute's body from the cell and goes back into the office so he can fill out the required paperwork, Javert sits outside the cell of an unconscious Enjolras, who lies limp on the wooden cot.

The avenging angel tamed by potent drugs.

Something about this sight unsettles Javert, and the idea that he feels unsettled disturbs him even more.

Why on earth should he care that this frustrating, incorrigible, fugitive boy looks so utterly shattered?

_Because he is not so easily broken_, that familiar voice says. _Because he is made of something stronger than most anyone you've ever encountered before_. _Perhaps he isn't yet broken, but he's certainly cracked. Severely._

He sees Enjolras singing softly to the young prostitute, and it mixes in his mind with the image of Valjean holding Fantine as she died, promising her he would protect her daughter.

_The very daughter who prevented you from jumping off the bridge._

Enjolras and Isabelle, Valjean and Fantine, blur together, burning into his brain, and he shakes his head, willing the thoughts away

_Enjolras reminds you of Valjean. Despite their ages, despite the differences in personality and circumstance, despite all the other factors, they are very similar at their cores, so self-sacrificing, so kind, so merciful, and yet when the cause calls for it, intensely ferocious. _

No.

Not Valjean.

A rebel. A fugitive.

_Valjean is a fugtive._

He remember Valjean's anger the night of Fantine's death, remembers their physical confrontation.

_If I have to kill you here, I'll do what must be done._

He sees Enjolras' intense gaze in the carriage, that gaze that seemed as if it saw right down to the depths of his soul.

_And that's why you had to arrest me. Because I fight for everything he represents. _

Javert shakes his head again, looking back up at Enjolras, at his blood-soaked clothing, at the blood reddening the floor.

For the barest moment he feels as if he might be ill, but he clenches his teeth against the wave of nausea. Against the wave of what he suspects is mercy.

Mercy that he absolutely will not show.

He's _right_.

And Enjolras is _wrong_; it's as simple as that.

_But Valjean is right_.

_And that means Enjolras is also right._

He stands, ignoring the voice and going outside for fresh air, to clear his head and put it back on straight.

Because in the morning they leave for Paris.


	22. A Dream, an Awakening, a Rescue Mission

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you again for the incredible feedback and loyalty to this story, it is so, so appreciated and wonderful. Thank you a thousand times over. And phew, glad to get this posted just in time for Barricade Day (or days, really, June 5&6) or the actual historical dates of the June Rebellion of 1832, the backdrop against which the barricades in Les Mis are set. Anyhow, I do hope you enjoy, and am ever appreciative of your follows, favorites, and feedback!

Chapter 22: A Dream, an Awakening, and a Rescue Mission

_Enjolras opens his eyes, finding himself once again at the barricade as he's been so many nights before. _

_Oh, he doesn't want to be here, not again, not now. In one of his few pleasant dreams he saw the people rise, saw them come over the barricade with tri-color flags in hand, the National Guard raising the flag of surrender, the sun rising over all the barricades across the city with the bright light of the future._

_But that is not this dream._

_Inexplicably he feels Jehan's presence beside him, even as he watches yet another Jehan running toward the sewer, sees another version of himself directing, Combeferre, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire toward safety, eyes averting from the sight of Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel, and so many comrades dead on the paving stones._

_It's like he's looking down upon the barricade from above._

_He watches the Jehan on the ground dashing toward him even as the silent Jehan beside him takes his hand, holding it firmly and completely in his own. _

_The Jehan on the ground falls in one swift movement, the same bullet piercing his heart that Enjolras has seen a thousand times over, and yet it never hurts any less. He watches himself reach for Jehan, watches his feet slide on the tidal wave of crimson._

_But he cannot look away._

"_Jehan. No, Prouvaire please, I'm sorry…"_

"_I know," the Jehan at his side says, startling Enjolras._

"_Jehan," Enjolras says, turning toward him and taking his other hand. "I tried to save you."_

"_I know," Jehan repeats again, a sad smile on his lips. "I know you did, Enjolras. You would have saved us all and died a hundred times yourself if you could."_

_Enjolras nods, eyes falling to the ground. But Jehan takes his chin ever so gently in his hands, forcing Enjolras' gaze up toward his own, light, leaf-brown eyes boring into his own._

"_He cannot break you," Jehan says firmly. "Nothing can break you, not even this, not any of it. It's as Wordsworth says 'We have within ourselves enough to fill the present day with joy, and overspread the future years with hope.' That bit always made me think of you. This is going to be hard, going to be painful, but you'll make it."_

"_What…" Enjolras begins, because although he knows hope always rests within him, he feels incapable of existing any other way, joy currently evades him. Although that, he muses, is not entirely truthful; he is utterly joyful that his remaining friends are alive, are safe with Valjean and Cosette, even if he knows losing him wounds them deeply, so deeply that he cannot think upon it for too long._

_But how can he put himself back together if his life might end in a matter of days?_

"_Listen to me, Enjolras," Jehan says, eyes popping with urgency. "You are cracked, you are splintered, you feel as though you'll never in your life get put back together again. But you will, because your hope burns so deep inside you, Enjolras, so deep, that no matter how damaged, how hurt, how broken and shattered you feel, you will always find yourself again. Please, please remember that. Promise me."_

"_I promise," Enjolras replies without hesitation, because he cannot deny Jehan. _

"_You have to let our friends put you back together," Jehan says, whispering now, squeezing Enjolras' hand harder, an odd sort of fear in his eyes, as if he knows something of the future Enjolras doesn't. "Grantaire, Feuilly, Marius, Gavroche, Monsieur Valjean, Madmoiselle Cosette. And Combeferre and Courfeyrac in particular, they know you so well, Enjolras. Just let them help."_

"_Jehan, what…" Enjolras starts, utterly bewildered now. He feels as if Jehan senses some sort of impending situation to which Enjolras himself is not yet privy. _

"_Tell me you will," Jehan says firmly. "Tell me. Trust Combeferre. Trust all of them."_

"_I will," Enjolras says. "I will, I promise."_

_Something tugs at Enjolras' consciousness, something sounding distinctly like Javert's voice, and he feels his grip loosening on Jehan's hand._

"_Javert is awakening you," he says, tears brimming in eyes. "Go. But remember that we are all with you. Always. Especially when it hurts the most."_

_Enjolras nods, squeezing Jehan's hand one last time before slowly exiting the dream._

* * *

The sun peeks over the horizon and into the jail window opposite Enjolras' cell, stripes of light and dark falling across the floor through the bars and across Enjolras' face. The light intensifies the gold of his hair, but with the blood and dirt streaked across his face, he rather looks like a fallen angel, a far cry from the palpable intensity radiating off him during the barricade.

He doesn't wake when Javert hits the keys off the cell bars, nor at the scrape of the lock or the creak of the hinges. Javert stands over him for a moment, reveling in this moment of vulnerability from this ferocious child of revolution, rebellion embodied in mortal flesh. Javert peers down at him, noticing that he's flinching in his sleep, a name muttered on his lips.

"Jehan. No, Prouvaire, please, I'm _sorry_…"

"Up, boy," Javert snaps, a bowl of water, a towel, a glass, and a small bottle of Laudanum in hand.

But Enjolras still doesn't wake, clearly held under Morpheus' spell from the power of his dream, from the torture of his of his psyche.

"Jehan, oh God, I tried to save you…"

Jehan. Javert vaguely remembers the name from his infiltration of the barricade, remembers one of the other young men calling for a Jehan and a lad with shoulder length reddish-blonde hair answering, his eyes lit with hope and youthful fervor.

"_Up_," Javert repeats, louder this time. "Our stage-coach from Paris arrives in an hour."

Finally Enjolras jolts awake. He blinks, clearly groggy and disoriented as the doctor had warned after such a heavy dose of Laudanum and last night's fit of pique. Enjolras sets his jaw, pushing himself upright awkwardly with one arm, clearly in pain, movements slow and clumsy, lacking his usual grace and quiet strength. Javert takes a handful of his lapel and rights him, pressing him back against the wall before he can fall.

Enjolras doesn't move, still blinking in confusion at his surroundings, before settling his eyes on Javert, memories rushing back. He glares at Javert with all the usual power and fire, but something has changed, something is different, something tempered by the trauma, the drugs, the pain, and it clouds those electric, impassioned blue eyes. Javert now feels less of the sense that Enjolras could break him in two despite the differences in their physical sizes, and Javert finds he can't quite look at Enjolras head on, for reasons he'd rather not consider.

_You are causing an angel to falter, Javert,_ that voice says, harsh with judgment.

_There's no such thing as angels _he says in reply. _Only flawed, corrupt humans. _

"Wash your hands," Javert says, placing the bowl beside Enjolras. "They're covered in blood."

"I don't know what difference that will make," Enjolras says, voice flaked with cold. "_Most_ of me is covered in blood, in case you haven't taken notice."

And it's true, Javert sees upon closer examination; Enjolras' trousers, his shirt, his discarded jacket, all dotted and streaked with brown-red stains. The combination of the growing bruise on Enjolras' cheek, his normally fiery gaze numbed by Laudanum, his dirty, loose blonde hair framing his face like a dimmed halo, makes for a rather terrifying sight. He has no waistcoat, Javert assumes, because of his shoulder wound, and either his own blood or Isabelle's reddens the bandage peeking out from beneath the loose shirt.

"Just do as I say," Javert says. "No arguments."

Enjolras complies, but with just the water there's not much he can do but try and clean some of the monumental amount of blood from his hands. He dips his hands in the clear water, watches tendrils of red snake away from his hands where the dried blood rehydrates and floods the water with pink. Javert watches him scrub forcefully at the skin, rubbing his fingers over each hand, desperately trying to divest himself of the stains. The boy shuts his eyes for a moment, and beneath the lids Javert almost sees flashes of the barricade, sees Enjolras desperately aiding his friends while fending off the National Guard, fierce in battle. Enjolras' opens them again after a moment, washing his hands even more forcefully now, but as there's no soap he can't clean it all away, Isabelle's blood still caked under his fingernails, but it's obvious that's not the only blood Enjolras thinks of. He pushes him thumb over and over again at the same spot in the center of his palm, even though it's been cleared of all remnants, water splashing over the edges of the bowl, his movements more furious with every second.

Javert's hands close like iron around Enjolras' wrists, stopping his frantic motions and passing him a towel, which he takes without comment, drying his hands in silence. His eyes are wide, breaths coming in short, shallow gasps and Javert now knows for certain he's remembering images from the fallen barricade, of his dead comrades, of the blood spurting from the prostitute's wound. He forces away any foreign feelings of sympathy, reminding himself that there is most certainly blood on this boy's hands; blood drenches any rebellion simply by default, and Enjolras killed, Enjolras rebelled, Enjolras broke more laws than Javert cares to count.

_America emerged a free country after such bloodshed_, a voice sounding strangely like Enjolras reminds him. _A country where the people speak for themselves, with their own voices. The boy reminded you of that._

_Yes, _he retorts back silently._ And how has that worked out for France so far? Or do you recall the French Revolution? The guillotine, the streets running with blood? Napoleon's reign and the subsequent return to a monarchy? The 1830 rebellions?_

_It was a start, _the voice says again_. An outcry from the people. Things do not always prevail on first attempts. Or even second ones._

"Drink this," Javert commands, pouring a measure of Laudanum into the glass, forcing the voice to the back of his head and watching Enjolras' expression turn stone-faced and immovable.

"No," Enjolras says, eyes rising up to meet Javert's, but the policeman has a hard time returning the gaze. "I won't let you drug me against my will. Not again. At the very least I won't make it easy for you."

"Do it, or I shall manacle your hands and _make_ you," Javert growls, wolf-like, but there's the barest trace of breathless panic in his voice, panic that doesn't suit him. "I cannot risk you throwing a fit similar to last night's during this journey."

Enjolras does not break his gaze, lifting his chin defiantly, expression haughty, Javert's threats apparently lost on him. The insolence in his face enrages Javert, and he pulls the manacles from his belt, seizing Enjolras' hands. Javert watches Enjolras clench his teeth against the pain in his shoulder when Javert pulls him forward, but he can't prevent a small noise of agony escaping him as the manacles lock around his wrists. Javert takes a hard hold of his face, noting in this moment just how breakable the bones feel beneath his fingers, suddenly wondering at his need to chain and drug this somehow frail, injured boy.

_Because you remember what he's physically capable of, no matter how he looks, no matter his current state._

_And you also know you cannot bear hearing anymore of his words, cannot let them sear your psyche, cannot let them make you doubt your very foundation as Valjean's mere existence has done._

Javert tilts the glass to Enjolras' lips, and Enjolras is too tired, too physically weak now to fight against him as he had the previous evening, and after a beat he allows the pressure of Javert's fingers to open his mouth, the Laudanum flowing down his throat once more.

"Now wouldn't that have been simpler, had you just taken it yourself," Javert mocks, a strange guilt that he doesn't like spreading through him like a disease, a guilt to which he is not accustomed when dealing with criminals, and most especially not to those accused of high treason.

He's only felt the guilt with…

With Valjean.

In the sewers.

On the bridge.

The guilt which marks the schism between right and wrong. Between anarchy and the law. Between morality and justice.

He shoves the feeling away with vehemence, looking back at Enjolras, whose hand clenches around his injured leg, eyes squeezed shut again. On one hand, pride rushes through Javert at the thought of his victory over Valjean, over Enjolras, at the idea that he's tamed this fervently idealistic fool of a rebel, but a most unwelcome pang of regret tinges his almost manic rush of triumph. It unbalances him and he finds he is not at all sure of his own emotions, he's only certain he isn't interested in feeling them.

"It is for your own benefit." He mumbles at Enjolras, whose eyes crack open as he lets out a shaky breath, the medication already doing its work, building on the fragments still in his system. "I don't imagine your leg will appreciate the six day carriage ride, so the laudanum should be welcome."

"I don't welcome anything…forced down my throat," Enjolras shoots back with petulance, voice hoarse from last night's shouting, but his words are the tiniest bit slurred, a bit slow, the opposite of the crisp, clear syllables that usually dictate his voice. "And I'm not entirely sure the state of my leg matters a great deal; as you've said, I'm likely for the firing squad, so what's the trouble with some pain, when it reminds me that for now, I'm quite alive."

Huffing, Javert takes in the amount of dried blood, the dirt, marring Enjolras' face. Despite the fresh dose of laudanum, pain and emotion increases the burn in Enjolras eyes. The boy has the face of a warring archangel, and the sight of it covered in blood disturbs Javert. Without really considering it, Javert takes the cloth from Enjolras' lap, wetting it once more and dabbing at a streak of blood on Enjolras' face.

Enjolras however, instantly jerks back at the unwelcome touch, nearly losing his balance from his manacled hands.

"Hold still, dammit," Javert says, an odd softness in his tone, taking hold of Enjolras' delicate wrists with one hand. "You are enough of a sight in those bloodied clothes; I need to get it off your face at least, lest you frighten people on the journey."

Enjolras relents because he's far too exhausted for fighting this, especially without use of his hands, and Javert wipes away some of the blood, some of the soot, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as he does so. He runs the cloth over Enjolras' bruised cheek and his captive winces ever so slightly, but keeps his eyes trained in front of him. Javert feels a slight heat in the boy's skin as his fingers pass over his forehead, and he realizes he couldn't have escaped those sewers without a significant infection with open wounds in his leg and shoulder, and the beginnings of a fever stir under the dirtied flesh.

Javert blinks, realizing he's stilled with the cloth pressed against Enjolras' temple, and the boy watches him through drugged but alert eyes. Javert removes the cloth hastily, wringing it out, the red of the dried blood combining with the blackened dirt Enjolras acquired both from the cell and Isabelle's clothing, and the inspector hears the rebels' final chant when they'd finished resurrecting the barricade:

_Red, the blood of angry men, black, the dark of ages past! Red, a world about to dawn, black, the night that ends at last!_

And it's at this moment that Enjolras lifts his eyes to Javert's, and though they're clouding over with the influence of such intoxicating drugs, there's still that ever familiar spark of blue flame racing through them. There's still too much fight in him yet for Javert's liking.

Javert breaks eye contact, tossing the cloth down and pouring yet more Laudanum into the glass.

"Drink," Javert snarls, all traces of his momentary softness disappeared. "Now."

Enjolras glares at him with all the intensity of a thousand suns, but he takes the glass begrudgingly, likely more because of the worsening pain than any desire for acquiescence with Javert's orders. And besides, it's clear he doesn't want the drugs forced down his throat again. Enjolras drinks, but Javert notices sweat beading at the boy's hairline, his face tinting red, which is either an indication of a growing fever or teetering dangerously close to a Laudanum overdose. Javert seizes Enjolras' manacled wrist, stopping him just as he's swallowed the first sip, the glass falling from his hands and spilling on the ground.

"I thought you wanted me to…take that," Enjolras says, voice even heavier now.

"I need you conscious," Javert says sharply. "And you're showing signs of overdose. My superiors would prefer you alive when we reach Paris, if only barely."

Javert's eyes travel over Enjolras once more, thinking he looks painfully young in this moment, an almost faded version of the young man he'd seen atop the barricade, simultaneously hating himself for even giving these odd emotions, these thoughts, credence.

_What have you done, Javert?_

"How old are you?" he asks suddenly, accidentally voicing the words he's thinking in his mind.

Enjolras looks back up at him, fighting to keep his eyes open from the effects of the drugs.

"Why does that matter?" he asks, words monumentally sluggish now, yet still maintaining some power. "No matter how young or old I am, you won't grant me lenience. My age means nothing, in the scheme of things."

"You look a mere child," Javert says, a scoff in his tone, but to his own ears it sounds insincere. "And yet seem a seasoned warrior. And you have no rights, Enjolras, I command that you tell me."

Enjolras meets his gaze again, and Javert holds it, but it takes immense effort not to rip the glance in two. Enjolras' eyes grow duller by the moment, but there is still a light at their core, a light Javert senses cannot be erased.

"Twenty-five," Enjolras replies. "If it's so important to you."

Twenty-five.

Javert wasn't even yet a guard at Toulon at twenty-five.

_Twenty-five._

Javert swallows back the rush of hot, burning mercy or sympathy or empathy or whatever the hell it is coming up his throat.

No.

He will _not_ do this.

He is _not_ Valjean.

No, he is Inspector Javert of the Paris police, righteous upholder of what is right, and he does not feel anything positive toward a rebel, toward insurrection, toward anything of the sort.

_But you do_. _You know you do. Now you see. Valjean has ruined you, opened up your mind to all these possibilities you wish to run from._

Enjolras is young, but he's also infinitely dangerous.

_The world is not black and white Javert. It never has been._

To France.

_No matter how much you wish from the bottom of your solidly encased heart that it was so._

To the law.

_What kind of law do you really defend when it can change on the whim of one man, one monarch, and those who hold power behind him?_

To Justice.

_Perhaps_, that voice whispers a final time. _He's dangerous to your own personal instability. And you want him gone, want him stuck in a prison cell in Paris and out of your hands, fully outside of your power._

_Or perhaps you simply want him extinguished. Because if he is, then you won't have to confront these emotions, these ideas which Valjean sowed in your head and Enjolras watered._

"On your feet," Javert says, severe once more, stifling everything within him but cold, unadulterated calculation. "The coach will be here soon."

* * *

Marius' leg bounces anxiously under the table, his hands fidgeting unconsciously atop it until Cosette rests one hand on top of both of his, stilling them momentarily.

He wants to go with them, wants to go with his friends to help save Enjolras, to follow Valjean. It had been his idea, after all.

But he knows Combeferre is right, knows his presence only creates danger for Enjolras, for his friends, for Valjean, and for himself, knows that his friends will worry for him if he goes, will get distracted. He knows Cosette would be crushed if something happened to him. She's consumed by worry already, consumed by worry for Enjolras, for her father, for all of them, and Marius hopes he can comfort her while they're all gone, and she him. Gavroche sits next to him in solidarity at also being left behind, but the little boy bears it well, because he promised Combeferre he would do whatever was asked of him, whatever was needed, and that meant staying home.

He knows all of these factors, and yet still feels so frustrated by everything.

So…purposeless.

_It's will be alright, _he tells himself. _Valjean and the others will save Enjolras, we will all be fine. You have Cosette here with you, living and breathing and real._

"Alright, Marius?" Courfeyrac asks, reaching across the table for the hand that isn't in Cosette's.

Marius looks up at him, the tiniest smile forming at his friend's concern, because even when Courfeyrac is anxious, sad, and afraid, he still somehow makes people smile, carries with him a sense of ease and amiability spreading around to everyone he encounters.

"I wish I could go with you," Marius says honestly. "Though I know I cannot."

"I know," Courfeyrac replies, squeezing his hand affectionately, eyes flitting over toward Combeferre; the guide sits at the corner of the table, so focused that he jumps when Feuilly comes over so that he might ply him with tea. "I would feel the same way. But selfishly, I'm glad that at least some of us will be safe here in this house." He looks at Cosette, a small beam of light entering his weary, worried green eyes. "I know I can trust you to keep Marius and Gavroche here in check?"

"You can," she says, sincerity and courage in every ounce of her tone. "And…" she's cut off by Valjean's appearance in the dining room doorway.

None of them slept a wink all night, but they all stand rapt at attention the minute Valjean enters.

"Madame Bellard tells me that the first stage-coach for Paris leaves Avignon at seven," he says, gazing around at the lot of them as if discerning whether or not they are planning something behind his back. "It is five-thirty now, and Javert will likely be preparing for the journey, and there will also likely be a shift change at the jail, which means less of a guard. I am going to confront Javert and try and get Enjolras back. But please, none of you follow me; I will not lie, this is a severely dangerous situation, and I do not want any more of you in danger. I cannot bear it, and I know Enjolras cannot bear it."

With that he turns to Cosette, kneeling before her chair and taking her hands in his much larger ones, expression pained, torn, but resolute.

"Be safe, Papa," she whispers, leaning her forehead against his. "I have all the faith in the world in you."

"I know," he says simply. "I know."

With that he kisses her forehead, gives each of them a somehow melancholy and yet still courageous smile, his eyes flickering to the only empty chair at the table, and the room goes still, everyone's eyes following his glance, the glance to Enjolras' usual chair, his absence palpable within every inch of the room and within every inch of them, this newly formed family.

"Javert is not in his right mind," Valjean says, looking at each of them in turn. "And I do not want any of you risking yourselves, especially when he is in this particular state. He and I have a history, and I am well-versed in handling him. So please, be safe here, and I will do everything in my power to bring Enjolras back to you. To us."

And then without another word, Valjean abruptly exits the room, the front door closing with an ominous echo behind him.

An ominous echo mixed with hope.

They wait for a sound, a sound of the carriage, a sound of horse hooves, in order that they might ascertain which mode of transport he chose. After a moment they hear the familiar sound of a single horse galloping off, and no sounds of carriage wheels following.

"Alright," Combeferre says after a moment of silence, his voice tight with tension. "We need to get to the stables, let Jacques prepare the smallest carriage and the horses, which should put us just the required distance behind Valjean. Madame Bellard told me the jail is about three quarters of a mile from here." He looks around at all of them, in particular at Grantaire, Feuilly, and Courfeyrac, who will accompany him, hazel eyes focused but swimming with barely controlled anxiety. "All of you promised me that you would do as I asked, that you would allow me to keep you safe. Is that still true?"

They all nod in absolute assent.

"We are at your bidding," Courfeyrac says, placing a warm hand on Combeferre's shoulder. "Whatever you say, we shall comply. None of us want to demean or undermine Enjolras' sacrifice, or your promise."

Marius watches Combeferre close his eyes for the briefest moment, leaning into Courfeyrac's touch, and his heart clenches in his chest, simultaneously beating faster and faster.

"It will all be fine," Cosette says firmly, one hand in Marius' and the other in Gavroche's. There's slight fear in her tone, which Marius suspects stems from her concern that her father will offer himself up in place of Enjolras, but there's also confidence, faith in her father, faith in them. "We will all be safe again."

Marius watches his friends, watches as something in Cosette's tone bolsters them, and he's filled with a nearly overwhelming love for the girl beside him, the girl he plans on proposing to as soon as Enjolras is once again safe among them. Each of his friends embraces Cosette, Gavroche, and himself; Grantaire looks as if he's on the near constant edge of shattering, but he's clearly steeling himself in order that he might help save Enjolras, though his hands still shake from withdrawal, and he shoves them in his pockets, Feuilly's eyes harden with resolve, with determination, and Courfeyrac runs a nervous hand through his curls, but bravery takes root in his eyes, courage that will save one of his closest friends. Combeferre meanwhile, lingers with Marius for a short moment.

"Thank you for helping me see that this was possible. And thank you for so willingly taking my advice and staying here." he says, hands on Marius' shoulders. "Thank you for not letting it go, for rallying me again. Because saving Enjolras, it's…"

"I know," Marius says warmly. "I know. All my love and prayers are with you, all of you and Valjean. Please be careful, Combeferre."

Combeferre squeezes his shoulders, and then he's gone too, leaving the room empty aside from Marius, Cosette, and Gavroche. Marius' eyes trail over the empty chairs at the empty table, and he prays silently to God, pleads, begs, bargains, that by nightfall they will all be filled again.

* * *

Javert grasps Enjolras tightly by the elbow, and Enjolras feels himself growing unsteady and faint on his feet from the effects of the Laudanum.

Without warning his bad leg crumples and the knee of his good one folds, hitting the ground sharply and sending pain from the wound radiating through him.

"Dammit," he says softly, but his head spins, immediately trying to right himself, dizziness threatening him, the world an incoherent blur in front of him.

"Up, boy," Javert snarls. "I'm not carrying your pathetic carcass to the coach when it gets here."

"I…" Enjolras breathes, gulping for air, the momentary softness he'd sensed from Javert earlier retreated far away now. "I'm…._trying_."

He rises slowly from ground, legs trembling uncontrollably beneath him; he stands, but he knows it won't last long.

Javert seizes his his lapels.

"You will not escape from me, Enjolras," he says, voice laced with danger, with mania. "Do not even try it."

"Do you even...think..." Enjolras replies, words very slurred now as the Laudanum fully sets in. "...I could...like this? Or that I wanted to? I knew when I...when I started that this...might be my end."

_Soon you shall see the fate to which I have condemned myself._

Suddenly there are horse hooves galloping toward them, a cloud of dust, and an approaching white-haired figure.

Enjolras looks up, shaking his head and clearing his vision. The world is a haze of color, and he feels his conscious mind melting, and he cannot fight against it, cannot overpower the potency of the drugs, no matter how much he desires to. He blinks again, focusing all of his energy on deciphering the newcomer.

Valjean.

It's Valjean.

Enjolras' heart leaps in relief and drowns in distress simultaneously.

_No._

No, Valjean cannot risk himself, not now, there is too much for him to do, too much for him to protect.

Why is he _here_?

And yet this action touches Enjolras deeply, and he feels a familiar fluttering of hope in his chest among the devastating feelings of anguish.

Valjean dismounts the horse with the grace of a much younger man.

"24601," Javert says, barely masking the shock in his voice. "No. _No_, not this time you old fool. I've won this time, I am right. You cannot save this boy, Valjean. You _failed _saving Fantine, she died Valjean, she _died _and you couldn't stop it, and you…you will _fail _saving Enjolras. His blood will spatter the paving stones of Paris, you mark my words."

"You don't mean that, Javert," Valjean says, frowning just slightly, but his tone brims with aggression. "You don't mean a word of it. You're not taking Enjolras in because you think it's right anymore, you saw the bloodshed at the barricade, saw it with your own eyes, and you couldn't possibly think shedding more is right. You once did, but if Cosette's story about finding you on the bridge is any indication…"

"_Stop_! Your daughter denied me my dignity, she denied me my…my…she denied me…" Javert shouts trailing off, eyes shattered fragments of grey glass wild with repression, with unchecked fury, with regret. "You don't know _anything_ Valjean. You know nothing about me. _Nothing_."

"I know more than you think, Javert," Valjean says, easing closer to them. "Now please, just let Enjolras come with me. "

"No," Javert says, flicking open a knife, Valjean's knife, holding it inches away from Enjolras' throat. It's a threat of the most serious kind, and Enjolras feels a rough pain in his scalp as Javert grabs a fistful of his hair with his other hand. His knees give way beneath him, and the only thing holding him upright is Javert's grip on his hair, Javert's arm holding him painfully tight against his chest, the sun glinting off the knife in front of his eyes. "I don't think I will."


	23. Breakdown

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you again for all of the incredible feedback on the last chapter! It is so very appreciated, as usual. Things have been a bit hectic, so hopefully I will get to answer more reviews this time around. Thanks to everyone for the continued support of this story, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 23: Breakdown

Valjean watches his own knife hover in front of Enjolras' pale neck, heart racing beneath his skin; one wrong _move_, one wrong _word_, one wrong _breath_ and Enjolras' life ends right here in front of him.

For the first time since arriving, Valjean sees clearly the state of Enjolras' person: his clothes are covered in blood-stains yet there's not a sign of any new injuries on his body, there's blood caked under his fingernails, dirt streaked across his face, a bruise on his right cheek, hair loose and tangled as if he'd slept wildly or gotten into some kind of physical confrontation. And his eyes, his eyes are hazy as if he's under the influence of a very heavy dose drugs, sweat beading at his forehead despite the very mild temperatures. He's only upright because Javert holds him there, his bad leg quaking from pain, his other leg following suit by trying to hold him up all on its own.

"Javert," Valjean says, even and careful, knowing that allowing too much desperation through will only increase the tension. "Please put the knife down. This has nothing to do with Enjolras."

"Not everything in my existence revolves around _you_, Valjean," Javert says, voice steely. "This fool broke more laws than I can count, shed blood, was involved in a treasonous rebellion and you think that has nothing to do with why I'm _here_?"

"I didn't say that wasn't part of what drove you here," Valjean says, voice still calm even as panic flutters in his chest. "But it isn't why you're pointing a knife at him now. You're angry because it was I who rescued him; you feel a connection between us, think us the same. You want to follow your orders by bringing him in, but even more than that now, you want to hurt me by hurting Enjolras, want to show me I'm wrong."

"You talk too much," Javert hisses, throwing Valjean's own words back in his face, the knife inching closer to Enjolras' throat. Enjolras' face is inscrutable, his eyes gazing at Valjean, pulse visible on the side of his neck.

"You can see he's just a boy." Valjean says takes two small steps forward. "He's badly hurt. He's already destined for a life in hiding; let him be, Javert. I beg of you. What does this prove?"

"One more step, Valjean, one move, and your precious rebel dies right here! I can't have you following me to Paris. He's very nearly the same age you were when you entered Toulon," Javert says, placing the knife lightly against Enjolras' skin now, and the boy doesn't flinch. "He may be young, but he made his own decisions. He's capable of leading a Republican insurgent group, capable of preparing for a barricade, capable of rebellion and chaos and killing. He was trouble for us even before the barricades, along with his _precious_ lieutenants, riling up people in the streets with his words and their pamphlets. And now he'll pay for it."

"You know how old I was when I entered Toulon," Valjean says in matter of fact tone, the hint of a question in his voice, directing Javert's attention to him rather than Enjolras in hopes Javert will drop the knife.

"I know everything about you," Javert replies. "_Everything_."

"And yet still nothing of me, Javert. Take me, instead of the boy."

"No," Javert says, adamant. "_No_. There is no deal here, Valjean. The coach will be here any minute, and Enjolras will come to Paris with me."

"And why won't you arrest me?" Valjean asks, even though he's certain he knows the answer already, because he is the embodiment of everything that doesn't make sense in Javert's mind: he's both a convict and a good man.

And worse yet, a reformed man.

A changed man.

"Don't you dare toy with me," Javert says, voice low and harsh with unadulterated fury, but Valjean hears the crack of desperation. "Don't you _dare_. You know… you…"

"I don't," Valjean lies, meeting Javert's eyes only to have Javert rip his gaze away. "Explain it to me."

Valjean remembers the alley behind the barricade, remembers Javert turning on his heel after Valjean cut the rope and released him, remembers the other man's cry.

_You annoy me. Kill me rather!_

A feral scream erupts from Javert's lips, and Valjean thinks the force of it could knock him back.

"I nearly jumped off a _bridge_ because of you," Javert says, suddenly, disconcertingly calm again. "Because of _you_ I very nearly plunged myself into the depths of the Seine, and you dare ask me why? I…"

Suddenly there's the sound of horse hooves coming to a halt a few yards away, and Valjean's heart sinks from his chest into his stomach, a burning flood of nerves stealing into his forced calm.

He told them not to come, he _told _them…and yet he is not surprised they came, half-expected them.

But they cannot come any closer, the situation is far precarious, far too fragile for any interruptions, any new influences.

Enjolras' eyes follow Valjean's, the first sign of visible fear trickling in as they watch four figures pile out of the carriage. Valjean breathes a sigh of relief that at least Marius, Cosette, and Gavroche are still presumably safe at the house. Combeferre bids the others to stay back, and Valjean notes that they instantly obey. Combeferre himself, however, steps forward.

"Stay back, Combeferre!" Valjean orders. "Stay back."

Combeferre does, gathering the others behind him, arms holding them back out of instinct. Valjean cannot bear seeing any of them hurt, knows Enjolras cannot bear it, but knows certain as he lives that these boys couldn't let Enjolras go, and only imagines just how frustrated Marius must have been after being left at home.

It's Enjolras' voice that pulls Valjean's attention back to the two men in front of him.

"You can't…arrest him," Enjolras says, his speech slurred and halting, but there's a hint of the power Valjean heard at the barricade there within his tone, something commanding. "Just leave all of them _alone_, just take me and…"

Javert removes the knife, a smile worthy of the darkest nightmares curling at his lips, and spins Enjolras around toward him. He seizes Enjolras' face in one hand, putting the weapon back in its former position, pressing harder this time.

"You ask me _why_?" Javert repeats, full emphasis on the last word, glancing at the group of Amis gathered in the distance. "Because in a moment of weakness, in a moment of doubt, I thought you were right about all of it, Valjean, and thought I was wrong."

"And now?" Valjean asks, scarcely drawing breath.

"Now," Javert replies, eyes locking on Enjolras' face, tightening the grip on his chin. "_Now_ I know that sending you back to the galleys will teach you nothing. But I do know what will teach you a lesson, will teach those rash rebels a lesson, will teach everyone like you a lesson." Javert's eyes move momentarily to Valjean before looking back at Enjolras. "And that's taking this rabble-rousing leader to meet his fate, a fate handed down to him by the unmerciful dictates of the _law_."

And then Valjean hears it, hears the word he hopes will save Enjolras, will save them all.

It might even save Javert himself.

"You talk of following the law," Valjean says, tone regaining its steadiness. "And yet you stand here with a knife to someone's throat, taking the law you've always claimed to live and die by into your very own hands, Javert. I don't believe your superiors would direct you to kill a prisoner who isn't attempting escape, who is hurt and weaponless. Legally, if you should point a weapon at anyone, it should be me, as I'm the one interfering. Do not become what you despise the most, Javert. Put the knife down."

The inspector freezes, the words having their desired effect. Grey eyes jerk between Valjean and Enjolras, Enjolras and Valjean, and Javert shakes his head, shutting his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again, staring hard at Enjolras, who stares back at him, a crack in his unfathomable expression at the cataclysmic sight of Javert's mind finally exploding in front of his eyes.

Javert releases Enjolras from him, stepping back, knife clattering to the ground, eyes wide as he looks near hyperventilation.

Enjolras sways for a moment before stumbling, pitching backward without the support of Javert.

Valjean seizes him before he falls, catching him with an arm about his chest and desperately gripping the younger man to him, pressing his back against his chest, both arms wrapped tightly around Enjolras' torso.

"I've got you. I've got you," he murmurs in Enjolras' ear, soothing, though his eyes never leave Javert. "You're safe now. Everyone's safe. I won't let you go." He can't see Enjolras' face, but he feels his breath hitch for a second.

Enjolras sinks to the ground, legs unable to bear weight any longer. Valjean could hold him up, does so for a moment, but cannot continue without hurting Enjolras by the tightness of his grip. So he folds with him, never loosening his hold on the boy until they are kneeling on the dusty road, with Enjolras weak, trembling, and propped against Valjean's chest, Valjean sitting back on his heels behind him.

And that's when Javert starts laughing.

He laughs.

And laughs.

And _laughs_.

It's a frenzied, hysterical, surprisingly high-pitched laugh, the sound rising and falling as Javert draws gulping, frantic breaths.

It's as if Javert's brain is glass and someone swung directly at it with a hammer.

It's one of the single-most disturbing things Valjean thinks he's ever witnessed, and yet a sliver of sympathy for this man, this man that's chased him for twenty years, the man who just had a knife to Enjolras' throat, remains within his heart, no matter the anger, no matter the frustration.

Finally the laughing ceases and Javert sits on the ground, hands rubbing furiously at his temples, then at his eyes, finally running through his grey-black hair, some of the strands coming loose from the tie.

But he doesn't look at them, not yet.

Valjean's eyes look back over at the boys, Courfeyrac, Grantaire, and Feuilly still gathered behind Combeferre, all their eyes roving back and forth between Javert and the two of them. Valjean presses Enjolras tighter against him, wishing he could grab hold of the knife, of Javert's pistol, of any potential weapon, because this situation is as unpredictable as any he's ever been involved in.

Javert shakes his head, mumbling to himself, eyes flicking up to meet Valjean's.

He holds the gaze, he holds it for a solid minute at least, his eyes a swirling storm of instability.

And then he rises.

He rises and pockets the knife, but Valjean's air flow ceases for a moment when he sees Javert reaching for something on his belt.

Keys.

It's keys.

Javert approaches them, squatting down on the ground in front of Enjolras rather than demanding either of them get up, and Valjean can barely hide his astonishment.

"Hands," Javert says, his voice fragmented with gruff emotion, sounding heartily unlike the voice Valjean's heard coming around every corner for the past two decades, the voice whispering into his dreams that there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.

Enjolras complies, holding his hands out, the key clinking against the manacles as Javert unlocks them. Valjean watches Javert and Enjolras observe each other, getting the sense that something Enjolras said, something he did, impacted Javert somehow, much as Javert might have hated the mere idea. Guilt lines every crease in the inspector's face, and guilt is not a feeling Valjean has ever expected from Javert.

He feels guilty for Enjolras' condition: that much is clear, and Valjean finds himself desperate to know what conspired between them in the past day, why Enjolras seems almost outside of himself, why Javert seems so affected.

"Javert," Valjean tries.

"Don't," Javert snaps. "Just…don't."

Valjean nods, obliging.

Thankful.

"Here," Javert says, brusquely, holding the knife over to Enjolras. "I need your blood. Cut your palm."

Enjolras stares at him from his place on the ground next to Valjean, the older man's arm around his waist the only thing holding him upright, but he takes the knife, his grip unstable from his trembling hands.

"Javert," Valjean protests. "What…"

"I need evidence for my superiors that Enjolras is dead. They'll need a story for the papers, for Loius-Phillipe," Javert says, persistent. "Which means I need his blood and some kind of personal item. Do you have such a thing?"

Valjean watches thoughts form like bewildered clouds in Enjolras' eyes, watches him nod and pull out a handkerchief out of his pocket, the words R. Enjolras stitched in red along the edge. Enjolras holds out his palm in front of him and lowers the knife toward it, his hand shaking so furiously that he cannot keep a firm hold.

Valjean silently places one hand over Enjolras' own and steadies it; he hates the idea of this, hates the idea of Enjolras experiencing even more pain, but Javert is right in this instance. Enjolras will be a fugitive still, but he'll be a fugitive who isn't actively hunted, and Valjean wants to make this complex situation as easy as possible. And besides, Javert clearly has to cover his own tracks. Valjean places his other hand under the one Enjolras means to cut, holding it still.

"Ready?" he whispers to Enjolras, well aware of Javert's eyes fixed on them.

Enjolras catches his eye, nodding, and Valjean presses his own knife into the soft flesh of Enjolras' palm, fresh blood flowing forth onto Enjolras hand. Enjolras emits a small noise of pain, but it's so soft only Valjean hears it; he pockets the knife with every intention of throwing it out upon their return home, because he doesn't want to lay eyes on it again, and he's certain Enjolras won't either. He takes the handkerchief from Enjolras, wrapping it around the wound and allowing the blood to soak it through before handing it back to Javert, the stage coach approaching down the road.

"You are dead, Enjolras. Do you hear me? Dead," Javert says, taking the handkerchief. "As far as society knows, Rene Enjolras was shot and killed by my own hand in an escape attempt."

Enjolras moves as if he protests the story Javert has come up with, as if he resents the idea because he had been so willing to accept his fate on behalf of his friends, on behalf of his cause, but there is clearly no energy left in him to fight Javert on this.

"And it would serve your friends best if they did not return to Paris in the near future, either," Javert says, casting a glance at the group of Amis gathered several yards away, all standing behind Combeferre. "Some of them are on watch lists. I need to hear you say that you understand me, boy."

"I…do," Enjolras says, as firm as he can manage, and Valjean grows more worried by the moment, as Enjolras' ability to speak dwindles, as if his mind shuts down against him. "I understand."

"I'm sure Valjean can invent a name and a life for you," Javert says, curt, voice hoarse from his earlier breakdown. He looks once more at Valjean. "It's a particular _talent _of his."

Valjean's mind rings with memories, one line shouting over all the rest.

_The man of mercy comes again…_

That's what he sees in Javert's eyes now, the faintest glimmer of the mercy he's taunted Valjean with teeming in his eyes.

He also knows Javert hates it with every fiber of his being, but it's there now. It's taken root.

Valjean only hopes the man's mind survives the encounter, survives the fact that he's let Valjean go willingly twice now, both times with a rebel in tow, and this time with the leader who's wanted by all of his superiors, by the king himself.

The coach stops a few feet away, and after a piercing glance at the pair of them, his eyes filled with a distinct, melancholic madness, Javert turns away, saying something to the confused looking driver before climbing inside and slamming the door. Valjean watches the coach kick up dust, Javert's face looking at them a final time through the window, shaking his head again before his eyes move forward.

And then he's gone.

Valjean looks at the young man still resting against his chest and turns him ever so gently around, arms wrapping lightly around his middle in an embrace.

"You shouldn't…have come," Enjolras whispers, held back tears cutting sharply into his words. "This was my fate, I…accepted it, you shouldn't have come, you shouldn't have risked yourself, there's too for you to do, too much for you…to protect."

"Listen to me," Valjean says, pulling Enjolras instinctively closer, feeling almost as he had the night he'd first laid eyes on Cosette in her dirty rags in the woods near the Thenardier's inn. "Ever since the moment I decided to help all of you escape from the barricade, you have become someone I want to protect, Enjolras, no matter how capable you clearly are of protecting yourself, or protecting those you love. I want to protect you all."

Enjolras' hands grasp Valjean's sleeves in response, blonde head resting against his chest, his entire body tense with the battle of containing his emotion and his pain.

"You are a warrior for the people, Enjolras, and I cannot protect you from your purpose because that is a disservice to you and the truly honorable cause for which you fight with every fiber of your being," Valjean says, overcome with his own feelings. "But there was a chance to save you, and I would see you live to keep fighting."

He'd never expected anyone else to storm into his life like this after Cosette, but now Enjolras, now all of these boys have done just that. He hugs Enjolras closer, wishing there was something as simple as a doll he could buy to cheer him up for even a moment as it had Cosette. Katherine hadn't healed Cosette's emotional injuries, nor her physical ones, but she'd helped, was something for the little girl to hold onto when she slept at night.

But there's nothing like that.

All Valjean can do is take him home, put him safely in bed surrounded by his friends, and help him in any way he can in what Valjean knows will be a long emotional journey for all of them.

Because these boys have been through hell.

"But I could not leave you with Javert," Valjean continues. "Not when there was a chance of saving you. There's too much for _you_ to do, Enjolras, so much for _you_ to protect. I can at least protect you now."

Enjolras nods into his chest, hands grasping Valjean's coat sleeves even tighter.

"Your friends are here for you. Your friends came, much as I might have forbid them. But Combeferre kept them safe, do you see?"

Enjolras moves his head, seeing Combeferre's arms still holding everyone back out of precaution. At a single gesture from Valjean, Combeferre runs toward them full-tilt, outstripping the other three. When Combeferre reaches them Valjean hands Enjolras very carefully over to him, still keeping his hold on Enjolras' waist to keep him upright. Combeferre squats down in front of Enjolras, taking his face gently in his hands, as if afraid his touch will break Enjolras into pieces.

"Enjolras," Combeferre breathes, thumbs running under the skin of Enjolras' eyes. "My friend, my dear, dear friend." Concern grows on Combeferre's face when he sees Enjolras' overcast eyes.

"Combeferre," Enjolras chokes out, as if saying his friend's name makes him more real, more solid.

"I think it's quite possible he's been drugged," Valjean tells him as Grantaire, Courfeyrac, and Feuilly gather in a semi-circle around them, giving their friend room to breathe.

"Enjolras." Combeferre says his friend's name again like a whispered prayer. Enjolras opens his eyes; they are swimming with tears and unfocused. His defenses are down, Valjean sees, his marble mask nowhere in sight. "Can you tell me what they gave you? Laudanum?"

Enjolras nods.

"Last…last night," he replies, words coming out in sharp, jagged pieces now, as if each one pains him. "Blacked…blacked out. And…more…this morning. You…weren't supposed to come. But you…you kept them all safe."

"I did," Combeferre says, and Valjean sees the tears in the other boy's eyes now. "But none of us could let you go. _I _couldn't let you go."

Enjolras meets Combeferre's eyes, and Combeferre rests his forehead to Enjolras'. It's this small thing that breaks Enjolras, and an eerie, chill inducing, manic laugh erupts forth from him, followed by a half scream, half dry sob that sends ice-shards through Valjean's heart. Enjolras puts a hand over his mouth as if shocked by the sound, shocked that it's even spilling forth from him, as if he has no control over it, but that doesn't cease the noise. It dies slowly after a few moments of its own accord, echoing through the air and bouncing back into their ears, into their memories.

It's all their grief embodied in a single shattering sound.

* * *

Combeferre doesn't want to let go of Enjolras.

He never wants to let go of Enjolras again, but he knows they have to get him in the carriage, have to get him home. He looks around at his other three friends, surveying their faces, their reactions and looking for some hint that he doesn't feel so alone in feeling lost at the Enjolras' he's found; he's seen Enjolras at his worst, at his best, happy, sad, angry, confused, content, disturbed, he's seen the entire spectrum of emotions in his friend.

But not this.

Never anything like this.

This is not the passionate, intense Enjolras he knows, filled with so much compassion it bursts forth in the flaming rhetoric of freedom. Nor is it the mild-mannered, charming, quiet young man who sits in his classes paying rapt attention to the professor, or the young man smiling indulgently at his friends' antics from the corner table of a cafe.

Courfeyrac's eyes are red, but Combeferre can tell he's fortifying himself, readying himself to help, desperate to do whatever Combeferre asks of him in this instance, but there's a veiled fear in his expression, a shock at seeing Enjolras like this, at hearing that sound. There's strength there too, Combeferre knows, the kind of warm, dependable strength upon which Combeferre can always count.

Feuilly glances desperately around him and then back down at his hands as if looking for invisible answers just lost on the edge of his fingertips, compassion pooling in his eyes. He pulls the new cap Cosette insisted on purchasing for him off his head, twisting it in his hands before his gaze rests on Enjolras.

Finally Combeferre looks at Grantaire, whose eyes are so wide they nearly pop with anxiety, and there are very real tears streaming down his face, tears he doesn't seem to notice as he stares down at Enjolras. It is a testament to the gravity of the situation if Grantaire's crying in front of anyone, and Combeferre's heart twists; Enjolras is superhuman to Grantaire, and seeing him so…so…

_Broken._

_Not permanently_, he tells himself. _This is trauma and pain and injury. Enjolras will find himself, will pull himself up again from the depths of this darkness because that's his greatest strength, always holding on to that light._

But seeing Enjolras so ripped apart must very nearly kill Grantaire.

Because it's very nearly killing Combeferre.

Enjolras' forehead still leans against his Combeferre's own, his breathing shallower than Combeferre likes. He's certain Javert gave Enjolras too much Laudanum now, just in the way his pupils nearly eclipse the blue of his irises.

"Enjolras." Combeferre runs a light finger over the bruise on Enjolras' cheek, where it looks like a ring must have into contact with his skin. "We need to get you to the carriage and get you home. Can you stand?"

"Yes," Enjolras rasps, a far cry from his usual powerful, graceful tone.

Valjean keeps hold of Enjolras's waist while Combeferre takes his arms, but the moment his feet make solid contact with the ground beneath them he collapses, saved from falling by Valjean's firm hold.

Combeferre whips around to Grantaire, one of the physically strongest among them, the one who's always helping Enjolras around, the one who's carried him multiple times since the barricade, the one who carried him through the filthy Parisian sewer system, but Combeferre meets a terrified expression and a barely noticeable shake of Grantaire's head, chest heaving as though he cannot get a deep breath. It's as if Grantaire thinks his mere touch will shatter Enjolras into tiny, irredeemable pieces.

Courfeyrac notices the exchange, and after lightly grasping Grantaire's arm, turns toward Combeferre.

"Take Valjean's place on Enjolras' other side would you please, Courfeyrac?" Combeferre asks. "So he can drive the carriage? I did a poor job getting us here…"

"You got us here," Courfeyrac answers amiably. "And that's what matters." He turns to Enjolras, voice going even softer. "Alright my friend. Mind if I put your arm around my shoulder here so I can help Combeferre get you up?"

Enjolras shakes his head, and in one fluid movement Combeferre and Courfeyrac lift Enjolras from the ground, carrying the majority of his weight between them; Combeferre has the side with his bad shoulder and his freshly injured hand, and once they're all in the carriage he knows he needs to temporarily attend to the gash.

"Is there an off chance someone has a handkerchief?" he asks. "Or even a cravat, something to tie around Enjolras' hand?"

Almost in the same breath he feels Grantaire place a clean handkerchief in his hand, pulling back almost instantly.

"Thank you, Grantaire," Combeferre says, more than a little concerned for his friend's state of mind, but there is not yet time to think it through. He turns back to Enjolras as Valjean gets the horses going, the carriage wheels rumbling beneath them. "I'm going to wrap this around your hand for now, alright?" he asks, not doing anything without first alerting Enjolras.

"Alright," Enjolras echoes, the single, pained word a knife in Combeferre's chest.

Combeferre watches Enjolras quietly reach for Courfeyrac's hand on his other side and Courfeyrac smiles, one of the saddest smiles Combeferre's ever seen grace his features, and takes it, intertwining Enjolras' fingers with his own, his free hand moving in small circles atop the skin of Enjolras' arm.

Combeferre ties a knot in the handkerchief, then takes the hand and holds it loosely in his own without aggravating the cut. A slap of grief stings the skin of his cheek as surely as Javert's hand must have done to Enjolras', given the ring-shaped bruise on his face. How he wishes for Joly's medical mind in this moment, how he wishes for Jehan's sweet, calming voice, for Bossuet's sarcasms to make them truly smile even the slightest inch, for Bahorel's insistence that he simply sweep Enjolras up and carry him.

But he has none of that now, and it hurts so fiercely he feels as if he might never recover from the pervasive, pounding ache.

Enjolras doesn't say a word for the duration of the carriage ride, nor does he let go of the tight grip he has on Combeferre's fingers.

Opposite Combeferre, Grantaire looks everywhere but directly at Enjolras, eyes straying back to their leader as if drawn there by some unseen power, but each time his gaze lingers only for a split second before snapping away.

Enjolras doesn't see this, his eyes lowered, staring fixedly, blankly, at Feuilly's knee. Feuilly's own gaze trains itself on Enjolras, openly worried and frowning.

On Enjolras' other side, Courfeyrac's fingers are still tangled into Enjolras', and of all of them in this carriage he looks the most at peace, Combeferre muses. Courfeyrac feels things keenly and strongly, but at the moment, he looks as though he doesn't have space in himself to feel anything beyond relief at having Enjolras back within his reach where he can keep him safe.

Said relief overwhelms Combeferre; Enjolras might be covered in blood, drugged, and near-catatonic, but his fingers are real and solid between Combeferre's own, and for now, that is enough.

It will forever be enough.

He feels Enjolras' fingers clench again as the carriage judders to a halt and wonders how on earth they are going to manage the stairs with him in this much pain despite the drugs already in his system. Courfeyrac climbs out first, taking Enjolras' uninjured arm around his shoulders and taking the majority of his weight while Combeferre climbs down too, their hands still intertwined. Enjolras cannot move his injured shoulder, nor bear any weight through his injured leg, so Combeferre has his arm wrapped tightly around Enjolras' waist, balancing and stabilizing him as he limps slowly into the house.

Combeferre feels Valjean behind him, hearing the older man's voice, a voice somehow washing him with calm, with surety, even during this horrific ordeal, tell him that he's going upstairs so that he might write Flora.

Enjolras' breath catches in his chest, the stairs looming before them, and Combeferre sees Cosette and Marius appear in the doorway to the parlor, Marius pushing Gavroche behind him as soon as he catches sight of Enjolras, unable to hide a small gasp. Gavroche protests and Marius turns away to placate him. Cosette's has somehow in the space of a few seconds arranged her face into a mask of composure, and had Combeferre not looked at her when her eyes fell on Enjolras, he might not have seen the flash of horror pass over through them even as she steeled her features into something more relieved that he is home with them.

The stairs beckon, and Combeferre nearly suggests a downstairs room unless Enjolras prefers his own bed, fighting the urge to simply sweep his friend off his feet entirely, when Enjolras awes Combeferre with his determination again by gritting his teeth, a hint of the familiar determination flickering across his face, and taking another awkward step towards the stairs.

Enjolras is still somewhere within this shell of him they've found, and it gives Combeferre more courage than he can say aloud.

Enjolras hops up every last step until they are at the top, shaking violently between them. Combeferre feels the knee of Enjolras' good leg give out over the last few steps to his bed but he still continues moving, the arm around Courfeyrac's shoulders now limp from fatigue so that Courfeyrac is holding all of his weight with the arm around Enjolras' back.

Combeferre and Coufeyrac lay Enjolras' barely conscious form gently as possible on his bed. Very aware of the other's eyes on him, Combeferre directs his first words to Enjolras, because he's quite literally never seen his friend like this, doesn't know what's happened, only suspects that whatever happened in the jail compounded upon everything else; the barricade, their dead friends, the abandonment of the people, the injuries, the illness, the sacrifice of himself to protect them all, creating the utterly unprecedented situation before him.

"Enjolras," he says, sitting down gingerly on the bed and turning toward him. "I know you're tired and I know the Laudanum Javert gave you only emphasizes that but you…you're covered in blood and I understand you don't want to tell me why right now, but I need to check you over for new injuries, check your old injuries…"

Enjolras grasps Combeferre's wrist mid-sentence, stopping his words.

"Sick," Enjolras says, voice barely audible. "Going to be…"

"Courfeyrac, the chamber pot please, quickly," Combeferre says, keeping as calm as he can manage.

Courfeyrac does instantly as asked, and Combeferre helps Enjolras sit up; mere seconds later he's vomiting into the pot, one of Combeferre's hands resting on his back.

"It's alright," Combeferre murmurs so only Enjolras hears him, pulling his hair back over his shoulder with one hand. "It's alright. This is either because of the Laudanum your body couldn't absorb or because of shock, which isn't surprising."

"Can't," Enjolras breathes, eyes looking up to meet Combeferre's. They're washed in pain, washed in grief, washed in an agony that sends goose-bumps racing down Combeferre's arms. The only thing that comforts him is the small pinprick of light cresting within the waves of anguish crashing down in splashes of cornflower blue. "Can't…see me…like…"

_They can't see me like this_, is what Enjolras wants to say.

_Of course they can_, Combeferre wants to answer. _They love every part of you, not just the parts they've already seen and already know_.

But right now isn't the time for such words. Combeferre looks around the room. Grantaire stands barely in the doorway, wild terror etched into every inch of his face, his eyes shattered shards of hunter green; Courfeyrac's eyes shine with unshed tears, every inch of him clearly wanting to scoop Enjolras up in his arms and make all of this better; Gavroche, who managed to sneak into the room, stands next to Feuilly, both sets of hands stuck in their pockets, wide eyes locked onto their friend and chief. Marius and Cosette stand near them, holding tight to each other. Marius' eyes are trained on the floor as if he simply cannot bear looking, while Cosette meets Combeferre's gaze, eyes wrapped in worry.

"I'd greatly appreciate it," he begins, voice emanating with kindness, but serious so that they all understand his meaning. "If everyone could possibly wait for me in the drawing room while I check on Enjolras' injuries and help him get some sleep? Courfeyrac, if you'd stay for a moment please."

Grantaire's gone in an instant, eyes landing on Enjolras for mere seconds before dashing out as though there's fire on his heels, and Combeferre meets Feuilly's eyes, silently asking him to check on their friend.

They rest nod in assent, and Cosette squeezes Combeferre's hand before ushering everyone out of the room and leaving Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac alone.

"Going to be sick again?" Combeferre asks gently once the door's closed behind them.

Enjolras shakes his head in answer.

"Okay, would it be alright if Courfeyrac and I made you a bit more comfortable?" Combeferre asks, wishing for the Enjolras who'll fight him, the Enjolras who tells him he's fine, that he needs rest and that's all, perhaps a good meal and to clean himself up, but that Enjolras isn't here, and that terrifies Combeferre. "Get your jackets and boots off?"

Enjolras nods, looking away once more. Combeferre pulls Courfeyrac toward him, speaking softly into his ear.

"I know he's filthy and covered in blood, and I want to check him over, but for now I think I need to let him sleep for a bit," Combeferre says, slightly reassured by Courfeyrac's perpetually warm hand in his own. "But he's going into shock, and I think he's been overdosed, so I need to stay here and watch him carefully. I need you to help me lie him down and keep him warm."

Courfeyrac squeezes his hand in response, and Combeferre hears his friend's shallow, anxious breathing.

Combeferre ever so carefully slips off the navy blue jacket, very nearly feeling the pain himself when Enjolras winces at the uncomfortable feeling in his shoulder, while Courfeyrac moves to the end of the bed, removing Enjolras' boots. Courfeyrac shifts and pulls the covers back. The two of them move Enjolras' unresisting form so he's curled on his side, still fully clothed and filthy, and Combeferre pulls the blankets snugly up and over Enjolras.

"Courfeyrac, can you get some sweetened tea from Touissant please?" Combeferre asks. "Actually, could you ask her to make some for everyone?" Combeferre says softly. "And a cold cloth, if you please."

Courfeyrac obeys the request almost immediately, the slightest hesitation in the way his hand lingers on Enjolras' hip as he leaves.

In a voice so soft it's almost a whisper, Combeferre says "I think you're going into shock. It's…expected. Tea will help, sleep is better, if you can…" He strokes hair back from Enjolras' hot forehead.

Enjolras doesn't respond, his eyes don't close but continue staring, blinking off into the depths of his own mind. It's Combeferre sitting on the bed, hands slipping under the blankets and taking Enjolras' cold, clammy hands in his own, hoping he can warm them that draws Enjolras' gaze back to his own.

"Combeferre," Enjolras says, almost to himself. "Combeferre."

"Yes," Combeferre answers, fighting against the tears gathering in his eyes and fogging up his spectacles. "Yes, I'm here Enjolras, and we're all safe. I kept my promise to you. They're all safe, Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Feuilly, Marius, Gavroche, Cosette, Valjean, all safe."

"Knew…you…would," Enjolras says, tugging slightly on Combeferre's hand, his entire body shivering. At this silent communication Combeferre moves fully onto the bed, sliding his legs under the covers next to Enjolras' and turning on his side to face him, hands still rubbing his friend's to keep them warm. Courfeyrac finds them this way a few minutes later, returning with two cups of tea in his hands, a cold cloth balanced on his arm.

"I am the master of carrying three things with two hands," Courfeyrac says, the barest hint of a joke in his tone.

Combeferre smiles genuinely at him, accepting Enjolras' tea cup as Courfeyrac places the second one on the nightstand. He helps Enjolras sit up and Enjolras wordlessly allows Combeferre to tilt the mug to his lips, as his own hands shake far too furiously for a firm hold. He can't have eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, Combeferre realizes, and even if he'd had food or water at all, he lost it vomiting a few moments ago, so he frantically gulps the tea and Combeferre doesn't chide him for the speed. Once he's had about half the contents he stops, eyelids falling heavily.

"Sleep," Combeferre says, laying him easily back down. "Sleep, Enjolras. We'll get you cleaned up when you wake, alright?"

Enjolras doesn't nod, doesn't shake his head, he merely closes his eyes in response, head falling back against the pillows, hair a wild, untamed mane of dirtied curls contrasting starkly against the white sheets.

Once Combeferre's sure Enjolras really has slipped into true sleep he hears Courfeyrac speak softly to him.

"Combeferre what's..." Courfeyrac tries. "He can barely speak, I don't…"

"It's," Combeferre begins, sighing. "Part of this is the likely drug overdose, part physical pain, part mental trauma, part shock, part fever. But there's…it's all compounded on him, Courfeyrac, everything that's happened, physical and emotional. And something occurred in the jail, I just know it, something that made everything worse. And the extreme dose of Laudanaum just broke all of his defenses."

Combeferre removes one hand from Enjolras, reaching out for Courfeyrac's reassuring touch, silent for a moment before speaking once more, his gaze never leaving their sleeping friend.

"Can you let everyone know what's going on?"

Courfeyrac squeezes his hand in affirmation and leaves silently, closing the door with a soft click behind him, leaving Combeferre alone with Enjolras.

* * *

In the hallway, Courfeyrac leans back against the wall and takes a shaky breath, letting it out through pursed lips.

They've got him back. And that's enough. It's Enjolras, he'll be alright, he'll be fine, he'll be…

Won't he?

He's never seen the ghosts haunting Enjolras' eyes like that before, has never seen or imagined seeing him like this, piercing blue eyes foggy with drugs, hazy with pain, their perpetual light dimmed-but not snuffed out, he reminds himself-by shadows. Something happened in that jail, something that Courfeyrac wishes he knew, wishes he knew so he could understand, so he could help, so he could separate out the physical ailments from the emotional ones, so he could tackle Javert hard to the ground and make him pay for whatever happened. He knows it is not just the past twenty-four hours that have impacted Enjolras in such a way, but it _was_ the catalyst for the situation at hand.

He cannot banish the image of Javert's knife to Enjolras' throat, no matter how hard he tries.

_Enjolras will be alright_, he tells himself. _We will put him back together if that's what it takes. Piece by glowing piece._

He goes down the stairs, steeling himself before opening the parlor door, running through what he will say for a moment.

Every eye turns to him when he enters. Valjean arrived back in the time he was upstairs and sits between Marius and Cosette, Cosette's hand dwarfed between his much large ones in his lap. Gavroche presses close to Marius, the older boy's arm around his shoulders in brotherly affection and comfort. Feuilly and Grantaire flank the fire; both are pale, Grantaire especially so. Even Toussaint and Madame Bellard hover by the mantle.

"He's sleeping," Courfeyrac says in a controlled and even voice, hoping it doesn't sounds as tremulous to them as it does to his own ears. "Combeferre is with him. He's been drugged, he's in pain, he's in shock, and he's running a slight fever. But it is not infection." He adds quickly, noticing the panic passing across every face in the room, a shared image of Enjolras the night he almost succumbed to a fever flashing through every mind. "Combeferre says he needs rest first of all, and to get the excess Laudanum out of his system and to recover from shock. And…time."

No one speaks, no one but Valjean, his voice sound strange in the utter silence that overtakes the room.

"Do we need to summon a doctor?" he asks. "Or will Combeferre be alright on his own?"

"Alright on his own, I think," Courfeyrac replies, taking the chair Cosette indicates beside her, watching as Feuilly does the same, eyes flitting to Grantaire, who still stands by the mantle, running a hand over and over again through his black curls. "Combeferre was done with nearly everything save his final exams before…before the barricade. He learned quite a bit at his Necker internship, and he'd let me know if he needed assistance."

Valjean nods, falling into silence with the rest of them and Courfeyrac breathes in deeply again, soaking in the fact that they're together now, that they're safe, that Javert is gone.

Because it's the only thing that comforts him.


	24. The Aftermath of the Storm

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello readers! I know I say this all the time, but thank you AGAIN for all the amazing feedback on the last chapter. It's always so wonderful to hear, and it is forever and always appreciated, since it helps me know what worked. Hoping to go back through and answer any of the reviews that had questions in them. Thank you for reading/following/reviewing! I do hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 24: The Aftermath of the Storm

Complete, utter quiet fills the room aside from the slight rasp of Enjolras' breathing.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Too fast.

Too shallow.

Combeferre holds the Laudanum responsible for suppressing Enjolras' breathing. He knows it will eventually pass, just as he knows that if this persists he will have to give Enjolras medication to evacuate the drugs from his system. He detests Javert all the more for attaching bad memories to the Laudanum, the very thing that can at least abate Enjolras' physical pain.

He feels Courfeyrac take his hand, intertwining their fingers and squeezing. He glances over; Courfeyrac's eyes are trained on Enjolras and although he smiles to acknowledge Combeferre's glance, he does not look away.

Combeferre doesn't recall ever feeling this lost in all his twenty-six years.

He doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to act.

_Nothing._

He _always_ has a contingency plan, _always _thinks things through, _always _has the answers, but now as he watches Enjolras sleep fitfully on the bed in front of him, as he watches Courfeyrac's eyes rove over their friend then flit back to the floor, he has no wisdom to offer, can hardly grasp onto the comfort he always provides.

He can only hold onto the hope that eventually, he will.

If only he could _think_ clearly.

Combeferre turns again to watch Courfeyrac, seeing his friend's lip quiver, tears breaking over the rims of his eyes and flooding down his cheeks even as Courfeyrac presses his lips together and squeezes his eyes shut. He breathes in slowly, deep and controlled through his nose, desperate not to make a sound, desperate to suppress the tears, to suppress his emotions. It is an action so distinctly unlike Courfeyrac, who wears his heart on his sleeve, feels strongly and openly, unashamed to weep or laugh or scream in frustration in equal measure. It is this, more than the tears themselves, that chill Combeferre's heart. He hears Courfeyrac release a shaky, tear-ridden breath, clearly stifled for fear of waking Enjolras.

"Courfeyrac," Combeferre says softly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Courfeyrac says eyes breaking away from Enjolras and looking up to Combeferre, tears slipping from his eyes even as he wipes them away with his sleeves. "I know I could wake Enjolras up…I…"

"I think it would take quite a bit more to wake Enjolras up right now," Combeferre says kindly. "Sit with me on the chaise lounge for a moment?" he asks, indicating the far corner of the rather expansive room.

Courfeyrac obliges, and once both of them are seated Combeferre takes both of Courfeyrac's hands in his own, a gentle sign that Combeferre wants Courfeyrac to talk to him, a gesture that's well-practiced between them.

"It would be terrible enough," Courfeyrac begins, grasping Combeferre's hand tighter as he speaks. "If _any_ of us were in this state. But…Enjolras. Enjolras is light and fire and life, he's so _strong_…and I don't…I don't…what _happened_ to him in the past twenty-four hours, Combeferre? What _did _this to him?"

"I don't know my dear friend," Combeferre says, wistful. "I don't know, though I do hope to find out from him, when I can. But this is trauma built upon trauma, and a mind, even Enjolras' resilient mind, can only take so much; whatever occurred with Javert, it was the catalyst for this state, I believe. The arrest itself, having to tear himself away from us, that was torturous enough, knowing how much it hurt us to watch that. Having a knife to his throat whilst we looked on couldn't have helped, along with the immense amount of Laudanum, the immense of amount of pain, the fact that a mere few weeks ago he almost died from infection. Not only must we all adjust to a new life, but Enjolras must adjust to being a fugitive. You heard Javert: to society, Enjolras is dead. And besides all of that…"

"It really only has been a month since the barricade fell, since we lost our friends," his voice falters a little, and he closes his eyes in remembrance of their so recently deceased, beloved friends. "Since we all watched the people fear to come to our side," Courfeyrac finishes, completing Combeferre's thought. "And we are still recovering from that."

"Yes," Combeferre agrees, unable to banish the sounds of the barricade from his mind for a moment, hearing in sharp remembrance the sound of Joly's cry of sheer agony when Bossuet fell, Jehan shouting Bahorel's name as he was pierced by the bayonets of two national guards. "And Enjolras' feelings of guilt…"

"He needn't feel guilty," Courfeyrac insists. "It is _not _his fault the barricades failed, just as it is not Charles Jeanne's fault or our fault or any republican leaders' fault. Each and every person on every barricade believed the people would join us. There was unrest in the streets; the people seemed so _with_ us, Combeferre. They have risen in the past as recently as two years ago, which we saw with our own eyes. There was no way to predict…and we all knew _exactly_ what we were getting involved in, what the risks were whether the people joined us or not: we knew we might face death. Enjolras didn't coerce us into this by any stretch of the imagination. We selected him as our leader for a _reason_…"

"I know that and you know that," Combeferre replies. "And in his heart Enjolras knows that too. I have no doubt that he will keep fighting because it's who he is, but survivor's guilt is a powerful, powerful emotion, one we all feel on some scale right now, but Enjolras even more so because he's our leader, because he wants to protect each and every one of us."

"I just want to know what Javert _did_ to him," Courfeyrac says. "Enjolras was certainly hurting before, we were all hurting, but now…_now _he's…he's…"

Coufeyrac cannot bear to utter the word.

_Broken._

Courfeyrac's voice trembles and fails, an audible sob escaping him.

And then he cannot cease.

Combeferre lets go of Courfeyrac's hands, pulling him into an embrace, holding him as close as humanly possible, Coufeyrac's chin hooked over his shoulder.

"I don't know what to _do_, Combeferre. It would take such horror to put Enjolras in this sort of state. I…" Courfeyrac says, warm tears sliding from his eyes and onto Combeferre's shirt. "I have never seen Enjolras hurt this badly, and I want to _mend _it, I want to _help _him…"

"I know." Combeferre kisses the side of Courfeyrac's head, voice cracking. "I know. I do too, so very much."

"We will put him back together," Coufeyrac answers, pulling back and looking Combeferre directly in the eyes, lifting one hand and placing it on Combeferre's cheek, his lips lifting in a fond, melancholy half-smile. "It goes against everything that is right in the world, seeing Enjolras this way. Nothing…nothing has ever felt so wrong in my life. We are all changed, certainly, but that hope at all of our cores, at Enjolras' core…that cannot be ripped away from us. Not forever."

Combeferre thanks god for Courfeyrac in that moment; he knows he will lean on him in the days to come as Enjolras in turn leans on him. If it weren't for Courfeyrac, Combeferre isn't certain how he might go about soothing Enjolras' tortured soul without his own coming undone in the process. Because his dearest friend battles with pain Combeferre cannot treat and cannot heal with medication or bandages, only with words, with love, and with time.

"Enjolras suffered things, had to go places in his mind and in reality so that he might save us from doing the same," Courfeyrac continues, holding Combeferre's hands once more, eyes flickering over to their sleeping friend. "And if he cannot bear his usual mantle for a while, we shall keep it safe for him." He places one hand over his heart. "Because that is far too precious to lose."

"Yes," Combeferre agrees, feeling the tears spring to his eyes. "Yes it is."

Silence falls between them for a few moments, and Combeferre focuses on the warmth of Courfeyrac's skin, of his normal breathing, of his mere presence, before speaking again.

"If you wouldn't mind," he says, squeezing Courfeyrac's hands again. "I'd very much appreciate it if you could find Cosette for me? I'd like to ask a favor of her. And after that, I'd like you to go get some sleep. Though if you could, check in on Feuilly and Grantaire. I can hear about Marius from Cosette, but I'd like to know how they are. But after that, sleep, please, Courfeyrac."

_Because I will need you later_, are the words he doesn't utter, but they're the words Courfeyrac knows he means. Coufeyrac wordlessly rises from the chaise lounge, squeezing Combeferre's hand one last time. He walks over to the bed, laying the ghost of a kiss on Enjolras' forehead, words Combeferre can't hear on his lips. He exits the room, the door closing with a soft click behind him.

Exhaustion seeps into every bone, every muscle, every crevice of Combeferre's body, but he cannot sleep, cannot look away from Enjolras, not when his friend's breathing is so shallow. He knows anyone else in the house would be willing to take a shift watching Enjolras.

But he can't sleep, not yet.

Seeing his beautiful best friend, filled with so much light, so much hope, so much pure belief he practically glowed, knocked down like this, struck down by a people, by a government who isn't ready for the future for which he fought so hard, the future for which they all fought so hard, feels like an anvil sitting permanently on his chest. He sees a flash of the barricade in his mind, sees the single tear rolling down Enjolras' cheek when he shot the artillery sergeant to save the barricade for just a few more minutes, to save just a few of his comrades.

_Let me alone. We must do what we must._

It's a soft knock at the door that jolts Combeferre from his thoughts, from his anxious observance of Enjolras' disturbed but heavy sleep.

"Come in," he calls softly.

Cosette enters, closing the door quietly behind her.

"Courfeyrac said you were asking for me?" she says, pulling up a chair next to his and gazing at Enjolras with eyes that brim with the overwhelming sadness Combeferre feels deep in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that spreads to the center of his chest and sits, mocking him.

"I did," Combeferre says, shaking out of his thoughts. "I was wondering if you might help me with something."

"Of course," she says, resting a hand over his. "Whatever you need."

"I need to check Enjolras over, get him cleaned up, and I can do that myself," he explains. "But I need to get these sheets changed, and his hair is a tangled mess, and…this might sound silly, but I was wondering if you could brush it out? I was going to ask Courfeyrac, but I told him to please get some sleep after he found you, because I'll need his strength for my own sanity later. Enjolras trusts you, I know. I think he'll feel safe with you. I thought it…"

"Might be helpful," she finishes. "Yes, absolutely. Shall I get some warm water and some cloths?"

He nods. "Please, I would very much appreciate it. How…how is everyone else?"

"Worried," she says, a tight smile on her features. "Marius is trying to keep Gavroche occupied, Papa just sits in his study, thinking, and Grantaire…well last I saw Feuilly he was standing outside trying to get Grantaire to let him in his room."

Combeferre nods, soaking in the information.

"Thank you Cosette," he continues. "Thank you very much. Much as I'm loathe to do so, I'm going to try and wake him while you're gathering the cloths and the water."

She goes, leaving the door open a crack behind her, and Combeferre turns to Enjolras, surprised to find his friend's eyes fluttering open.

"Enjolras," Combeferre says, treasuring the sound of the name on his lips, because he'd been so afraid he'd never get the chance to address Enjolras again. "You're awake."

Enjolras opens his eyes fully now, but looks frantically around the room as if he's forgotten where he is, jumping when Combeferre touches his shoulder lightly. He whips his head around toward Combeferre, breathing hard, before calming slightly when he focuses on the familiar face.

"It's alright, it's alright," Combeferre says, calm. "You're at home with us, at M. Gillenormand's in Avignon. There's no one and nothing here to harm you, to harm any of us, I promise."

Enjolras' eyes meet Combeferre's, a wave of understanding passing through them as his breathing eases, but he doesn't say a word.

"I was just about to wake you." Combeferre sits once more on the edge of the bed. "So we can get all that dirt and blood off you. Cosette is going to come and brush the snarls out of your hair, if you don't mind? Don't want the dirt getting matted down in there. I would have asked Courfeyrac, but he's been sitting here with me for hours, and he was in desperate need of rest. Do you mind if Cosette gets the tangles out of your hair?"

Enjolras shakes his head, pushing himself up in bed on unstable limbs.

"Good then," Combeferre mutters, lost for what to say. "Good."

He helps Enjolras over to the chaise lounge so that he might change the bedding, soiled now by dirt, blood, and sweat. Just a few minutes later Cosette returns with the promised items, along with a fresh roll of bandages they'd bought in Avignon a few days ago.

As he changes the dirtied sheets, Combeferre eyes Cosette and Enjolras out of the corner of his eye, neck pinched with anxiety.

"Do you mind if I wet the brush a bit?" Cosette asks, and just hearing her tone reassures Combeferre he was right in coming to her; Enjolras still hasn't spoken since awakening, but Cosette continues on as if things are normal, speaking to Enjolras in the same tone of voice she always uses, and Combeferre thinks once again just how mature and well-adjusted she is for a near eighteen-year-old with such a distressing past. Valjean, he muses, is an excellent father, despite his unusual circumstances.

Enjolras catches Cosette's eye very briefly, and shakes his head once more.

"It's warm water," Cosette continues, dipping the brush in the bowl. "So it should feel rather nice. It just makes it easier to brush through the curls."

Enjolras closes his eyes as Cosette takes the first gentle stroke of the brush through the fly-away blond curls that nearly touch the top of Enjolras' shoulders. Enjolras' hair is almost always tied back, so Combeferre sometimes forgets how long it is compared to his own short locks. It seems longer still as Cosette continues her work, slowly and ever so gently brushing out the tangles and the curls, dampened brush taking the dirt with it along the way.

Enjolras doesn't wince once at a snarl, nodding when Cosette asks if she'd like her to tie it back for him. She does, slicking back a few loose strands hanging in the front and brushing them out of his face.

Combeferre almost smiles, because Enjolras never understood why women and men alike gazed after him when he walked past, and he took his friends' word for it that his appearance was not particularly inconspicuous.

But rather than the intense, blazing fire Combeferre's so accustomed to, there's an apocalyptic rainstorm darkening Enjolras' eyes, the barest hint of sunlight peeking out behind the clouds, shading them a most atypical grey-blue.

"Alright," Cosette says, turning toward Combeferre. "I'll leave you to check him over, Combeferre. But let me know if you need anything at all. Either of you. I expect I'll be in the drawing room with Marius for a bit."

She looks Enjolras in the eyes, leaning down to kiss his cheek, and Combeferre sees the slightest upward quirk of Enjolras' lips. Cosette is a pure, wonderful example of a person given another chance at life by the kindness of one man, and seeing her happy, seeing her whole, likely makes Enjolras remember how much he wants such a chance for every person in France, for every person in the world.

Just that _chance_ at happiness, at freedom.

He had once strived for only the Great French Republic, but under the influence of Combeferre and Feuilly's ideas, under the influence of the Friends of the ABC at large, Enjolras turned his sights toward the Immense _Human_ Republic.

And no matter Enjolras' state now, Combeferre knows that idea still lives in him.

It _is_ him.

With that, Cosette takes her leave and the two friends are left alone.

Combeferre's laid towels all across the fresh bedding in order to keep it dry while he cleans Enjolras up. He feels the apprehension emanating off Enjolras, so he strides over to his chair, squatting down in front of his friend.

"I really need to get you cleaned up and check on your injuries," he says, keeping a normal tone, hoping it will coax Enjolras into talking again. No matter how hurt, how traumatized, Combeferre knows speaking to Enjolras as if he was a child will not get him anywhere. He moves slowly as he speaks, so Enjolras can see everything he's doing; he lifts a hand to feel Enjolras' forehead and take his pulse. It's still rapid, but less thready than before. "I know it isn't what you want right now, and I don't want to cause you any more pain, but I want to make sure nothing's been exacerbated, to be certain there's not a recurrence of infection; you have a bit of a fever."

"Alright," Enjolras whispers after a moment, the first words he's spoken since he awoke, and Combeferre holds onto the small sound with everything in him.

Combeferre never thought he'd see the day when he'd wish for Enjolras' stubbornness about his own well-being and part of him welcomes, expects, Enjolras' usual arguments.

But they don't come.

Combeferre helps Enjolras back over to the bed, helps him undo the buttons on his shirt, helps him slide it off, helps him out of his bloodied trousers as Enjolras winces in pain when he places full weight on his bad leg. Enjolras lies down on the bed, shivering in nothing but his underclothes, and Combeferre cracks open the window, the warm air floating inside the drafty room. It is a sign of Enjolras' complete trust in Combeferre that he allows himself this much vulnerability.

"Let me know if anything hurts, alright?" Combeferre asks, wetting the first cloth in the still warm water Cosette brought. "Especially if you feel your breathing growing labored, I'm a bit concerned about how much Laudanum you've been given."

He doesn't press for the answer because he knows Enjolras' limited use of words, the forced sound when he does manage it, is a sign of a severe level of trauma that might only grow worse with too much prying.

He cannot hide his surprise when Enjolras speaks again, but each aggrieved, stilted word feels like a new wound in Combeferre's heart; it is such a far cry from Enjolras' usual firm, lyrical speech, a voice mixed with words that make you feel as if you will burst from enthusiasm, from passion.

Words that light your very soul on fire.

But these words…

These words only douse his soul in sadness.

"Three…full doses," Enjolras says, pushing the words out one by one. "And then…another…half."

"Thank you," Combeferre breathes, his voice tremulous. "Thank you for telling me. I'm hopeful that your spell earlier evacuated what wasn't already absorbed, but if you can, let me know if it gets any more difficult to breathe."

Enjolras nods, looking off into the distance again. Combeferre's eyes rove over Enjolras' form; he's lost weight in the past few weeks from bed rest and his suppressed appetite, the skin under his eyes purpled from lack of sleep.

He looks so…human.

Of course he's as human as any of them; Combeferre knows that perhaps better than anyone, but sometimes Enjolras looks so ethereal, so otherworldly, so like a painting of a righteous archangel, that for some, it's easy to forget.

But now…

Blood from his ruined clothes seeped through to his skin, and his legs in particular are streaked with red, his fingernails caked with dirt and blood, though his face is clean for the most part, which puzzles Combeferre.

What on earth _happened_? There is no sign yet of new injury, and this is far too much blood for residual bleeding, so Combeferre can only gather that this is someone _else's_ blood.

Combeferre very carefully removes the dirtied bandage around Enjolras' leg wound, relived to see that the wound itself doesn't look inflamed or infected. There is some residual bleeding, but less than he initially feared. He gently cleans around the wound, wishing he could at least let Enjolras squeeze his hand every time he flinches in pain, but he needs both of his hands to do his work. Once the leg's re-bandaged Combeferre washes the rest of the red-brown stains from Enjolras' legs, running his hands up and down the strong, slender appendages and checking for any further injury of which he finds none. He cleans and bandages the shoulder wound, which begins healing much faster than the leg, washes the remaining dirt and blood off his face, and then moves to Enjolras' hands.

"Do you have the energy to sit up for a moment?" Combeferre asks. "I need to lather up your hands."

Enjolras silently complies, and Combeferre props him up against the pillows, wetting Enjolras' hands before lathering them with soap, doing his best to ignore the angry red marks left by the iron manacles and concentrating on cleaning the blood out from Enjolras' fingernails, which takes some doing. His eyes dart up to the small bruise on Enjolras' face.

"You've been hit?" Combeferre asks before he can stop himself, rinsing the soap off in the bowl of warm water, wondering if this small piece of information will give him any clues about what occurred.

Enjolras nods again.

"Javert." The word is so quiet, if there is any tone to it, Combeferre cannot hear it.

A fresh surge of fury floods Combeferre at the mere mention of Javert, yet he also cannot banish the man's half-crazed laughter from his mind, cannot help but wonder at him releasing Enjolras to Valjean.

"Argued with him," Enjolras says, a little louder, voice crushed with sorrow and still thick with drugs. But Combeferre clings to Enjolras' new willingness to speak, no matter how much hearing the stunted words hurts him.

It's the smallest bit of progress, and Combeferre smiles ever so slightly at the image of Enjolras, manacled hands, injuries and all, debating politics and philosophy with a police inspector after his arrest.

"You are a brave man, my friend," Combeferre says, sincerity embalmed deep into every word. "I think you're as clean as you're going to get at the moment, want to try and get into this nightshirt?"

Enjolras allows Combeferre to help him into said nightshirt, sitting back on the bed, blankets pulled up to his waist, but he doesn't make any moves to lie down and sleep again. Combeferre sits on the edge of the bed, still giving Enjolras his space, but watches him carefully.

"Would you like to talk?" Combeferre asks, folding his hands in his lap. "I'm not going to force you under any circumstance, only if you're ready."

Enjolras looks at him again, looks at him as if he's actually seeing him for the first time since he's returned to them. Tears gather on Enjolras' lashes and at first he doesn't seem to notice, but after a moment he lifts one hand to his face, thumb and forefinger pressing down on his eyes to prevent the tears from going any further.

"Enjolras," Combeferre exhales. "It's…You are the strongest person I've ever known, but please, allow me to be your strength right now. Speak freely, let me help."

Enjolras gazes at him again, and then before Combeferre quite realizes it, Enjolras' head is resting on his chest, hands grasping at the material of his sleeves. Enjolras is always tactile with their inner circle, but this is different, this is _desperate_.

"Enjolras," Combeferre whispers. "It's…I won't say it's alright, I won't do such an injustice by you. But you can talk to me. You're carrying a burden, and if you wish it, I will be here to help you carry it. We all are."

"I…don't…" Enjolras tries, pulling back again, and Combeferre takes a gentle hold of his arms, hands resting in the crooks of Enjolras' elbows. "I…"

Combeferre stops for a moment. Perhaps taking the lead in the conversation will help Enjolras along?

"Was there some type of altercation while you were in the jail?" he asks, cautious. "Did someone attack you?"

Combeferre knows Enjolras is more than capable of defending himself; He'd seen it at the barricades in 1830 and he'd seen it a few weeks ago. If it meant protecting his friends, himself, or any defenseless person for that matter, Enjolras could would, and had killed, even though it ripped him up inside. Had some such event occurred in the jail? Did it affect Enjolras more severly outside the world of the barricade than it did within its confines?

It ripped them all up inside, fighting and killing their fellow countrymen, the blood and the violence and the death.

Combeferre loathed violence, but he also knew, as Enjolras did, that the only way to spark change in this climate _was_ to be violent. He knew it was necessary, and both hoped for a world where one day such means weren't necessary, a world where the people possess the power to speak without needing violence, where natural progress could take the lead.

But that didn't make it any easier on Enjolras' heart, his mind, or his soul, and here was where Enjolras' true strength lay: in his ability, in his willingness to do what other men could not in order to create a better world for everyone, even if it meant his own suffering, his own condemnation. He knows Enjolras as well as he knows himself, and he won't ever forget watching Enjolras swallow back his emotion, his regret at the necessity, when Le Cabuc was on his knees, Enjolras' gun pointed at his head. It was a fraction of a facial movement that only those who knew him well would see amidst the severe fury burning hot and cold all at once, but it was there nonetheless. Le Cabuc ruthlessly shot that shopkeeper, and likely would have taken another innocent life if given the chance, especially given that they'd later discovered he was a member of Patron-Minette; the brutal and immoral Claquesous.

Combeferre will never forget the intense melancholy in Enjolras' eyes when he found him afterward near the edge of the barricade, as if all the sorrows of the world rested within them, mixed with the unwavering belief in the beauty of humanity, of the future.

Combeferre remembers his own words, words he will never regret.

_We will share thy fate!_

"No," Enjolras says, the wilted voice tinged with the barest breath of determination pulling Combeferre back out of his musings.

"Was someone else in the prison injured?" Combeferre continues, jumping to the next possible conclusion.

"Yes," Enjolras says, voice lifting a little as Combeferre catches on. "A…prostitute. Isabelle. Someone stabbed her. And I tried…I couldn't…I…"

Enjolras' voice trembles and breaks, the waterfall of emotion pouring forth and breaking on the rocks in one shattered, audible sob before he swallows the sound back down.

Combeferre instantly pulls Enjolras into his arms as he'd done with Courfeyrac earlier, and his friend feels so very frail in his embrace; and despite his delicate appearance, Enjolras has never _felt_ frail. He's never _been _frail, not in any sense of the word.

Enjolras draws sharp, deep breaths to prevent more sound escaping him, but the tears do flow silently from his eyes and onto Combeferre's shirt.

"She was stabbed by a thief," Enjolras tells him, words still faltering, but more fluid than before, now that the damn burst forth. "And I…I did my best to follow what you and Joly taught me about wounds, but Javert wouldn't call for a doctor, not until…until it was too late."

"She died," Combeferre answers. It's a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Enjolras says breathlessly, trying to regain control of his voice. "Right…in my arms and I could do _nothing_. She was completely defenseless… I…"

"Oh Enjolras," Combeferre replies, pulling him closer. "No one could have without the proper medical supplies. You can't blame yourself."

"They just didn't _care_," Enjolras says, emphasizing the last word. "And I…I was furious. I flew into a rage, I lost _complete _control of myself, I've never…never lost in such a way before."

"And so Javert drugged you?" Combeferre asks, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," Enjolras repeats. "I said…1something that bothered Javert and he…grabbed me…and I…foolishly tried kicking him away. Then he ordered the doctor to medicate me. Two doses. Then I blacked out."

Enjolras' whole body shakes from effort now, and Combeferre pulls back from the embrace, keeping a tight, reassuring grip on Enjolras' shoulders.

"I had…flashbacks," Enjolras says, meeting Combeferre's eyes, and Combeferre sees the raw pain, the grief he feels mirrored there in Enjolras'. "I saw the blood and felt…felt like I was back at the barricade. I saw the images, saw our friends…and the pain in my leg and my shoulder afresh…I…and then Javert had his knife to my throat in front of all of you, I saw how terrified you were…and the drugs were so…strong…I…"

"Shhh," Combeferre says, swiping at the tears in his own eyes. "You don't have to tell me anymore right now, we can speak further later, you're trembling and you're feverish. Rest for me, alright?"

Enjolras agrees, and Combeferre arranges the pillows for him, taking his place in the chair next to the bedside. Enjolras takes his hand, and after a few minutes he's asleep again, the pull of the ridiculous amount of Laudanum still holding sway.

He's not sure how much time has passed when he feels his own eyes grow heavy, when he hears a firm set of footsteps enter the room, when he hears another chair scrape across the hardwood.

"Sleep, son," Valjean's kind, calming voice says, carefully removing Combeferre's spectacles. "Sleep."

"I have…"

"I'll watch him," Valjean cuts in, placing a hand on his shoulder. "If you're too concerned to sleep in your own bed, at the very least go lie down on the chaise. I'll wake you if anything happens."

"You have to watch…"

"His breathing," Valjean finishes. "I know. Sleep, Combeferre."

Combeferre obeys, curling up not on the chaise lounge but beside Enjolras, their hands intertwined atop the sheets between them

* * *

After his unsuccessful attempts at getting access to Grantaire's room, Feuilly wanders the halls of the colossal Gillenormand home, aimless, but deep in thought.

Enjolras' half sob, half scream rings in his head, almost unrelenting, and anger at Javert, anger at _everything_, pierces his soul.

He's just so damn _angry_. It's a quiet, reserved anger, but it's still fiercely present.

Feuilly isn't a stranger to anger; he was furious when his parents died, furious at the robbery that killed his father, furious at the cholera that stole his mother soon after. They'd been poor, they'd been desperate, but they'd been _together_.

And then he was another gamin alone on the streets.

But he turned his anger into determination, and with the help of a few kind souls, he taught himself to read, he taught himself to write. He yearned for the opportunity of a proper university education, and his anger at the government over being deprived of such chances because of station and class and money, grew.

So he turned that anger into a drive for politics and he learned about France, learned about Europe, learned about America, learned about every country he could. He found a passion in embracing the world that hurt him rather than shunning it in order that he might pave the way for a better existence for the people who lived in it, people who suffered the things he did and worse.

He turned his anger into art and painted fans, created beautiful pieces, no matter how much his hands hurt at the end of the day.

He channeled his anger so well that he hardly ever appeared outwardly angry, particularly since he'd met the Amis, since he'd found this second family, since they staved away his loneliness. If prompted he knows his friends would never label him as angry: impassioned certainly, enthusiastic, but mild-mannered and cool-headed unless very seriously provoked.

But now he feels the old anger bubble to the surface again like acid, hot and burning, mixing with the ever-present state of melancholy they've all experienced since the barricade fell, since losing their friends, since their lives were turned upside down and inside out.

Since Feuilly had half of his second family ripped from him, nearly losing Enjolras, the friend he respects and admires with every ounce of his heart, ripped open the still healing wound afresh.

He remembers Enjolras speaking from the top of the barricade, loose golden hair around his head like a halo as the sun hit the strands; he'd looked so unbreakable then, a quiet power emanating from every inch of him. Feuilly remembers Enjolras' eyes falling on him, the smile on his lips as he spoke.

_Listen to me, you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right for your father._

He'd blushed and batted Bossuet's teasing hand away, but he'd also been indescribably touched, and made a point to clasp Enjolras' hand when he saw him next, remembering hours long talks with Enjolras in the corner of the Musain, and how right and peaceful it always felt.

The memory of stepping up to Javert, of Javert pulling out his pistol, of Grantaire stepping up next to him, flashes in his mind. He sees Enjolras attempting to walk without limping as Javert drags him off, sees Enjolras' feet give out from under him as Combeferre and Valjean try lifting him up off the ground, sees the knife at Enjolras' throat.

Right now, Feuilly could cheerfully sock Javert in the face. Very cheerfully, and he isn't much for brawls unless necessary. That, he muses, fondly, was more Bahorel's line of work.

Yet Javert had let Enjolras go in the end, let them all go, and that confused Feuilly even more, though he cannot yet forgive the man for whatever caused this state in Enjolras.

He stops in his tracks at seeing a familiar face outside the closed door to Enjolras' room, thought process interrupted.

"Grantaire?" he whispers. "What are you doing out here?"

"Listening," Grantaire whispers back, eyes flickering up briefly in Feuilly's direction, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Well, I don't think spying on our friends is the best plan," Feuilly replies, crouching down on the floor next to Grantaire. "Enjolras is sleeping and Combeferre is keeping watch alone now, because he sent Coufeyrac to bed, I saw him in the hallway a bit ago looking for the both of us, told him I'd find you myself. There's…there's nothing to do right now."

"He isn't sleeping anymore," Grantaire mutters, and Feuilly notes the use of the pronoun rather than Enjolras' name. "They're talking. Quiet for a moment, I can hardly hear them as it is."

"You were avoiding me," Feuilly persists, not unkindly.

"Shhh."

"Grantaire."

"Feuilly, please," Grantaire says, a frantic edge in his voice that concerns Feuilly. "I'll…I'll talk to you if you just let me listen for a moment."

Feuilly sighs but relents, feeling uncomfortable with the entire situation. But he's worried about Grantaire, saw his reaction to Enjolras when they'd rescued him, and while Combeferre and Courfeyrac are occupied with figuring out what happened to Enjolras, Feuilly will take it on his shoulders to watch over Grantaire.

And he has to admit, he wants to know how Enjolras is doing, desperate for any inkling of what might have happened while he was in Javert's clutches. He'd rather hear it not on the other side of this door, he's willing to wait, but Grantaire clearly does not possess the patience. Though he knows Combeferre certainly wouldn't be angry if he found them sitting here like this, Feuilly still crouches on the balls of his feet next to Grantaire, poised to dash off should the door open.

"Was someone else in the prison injured?" Combeferre's voice asks. It's patient, gentle, and, Feuilly notices, the tiniest bit shaky.

He finds that sound sends a prickle of disquiet into his heart, because Combeferre always sounds certain, sounds confident.

But what he hears next unsettles him even more, and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to dash through the door to see Enjolras for himself, but he also knows that might stop this tenuous process Combeferre's attempting.

"Yes," Enjolras says, in the same unfamiliar incoherent, heart-wrenching tone of voice. "A…prostitute. Isabelle. She was stabbed. And I tried…I couldn't…I…"

And then Feuilly hears it, hears the sound of a single broken sob escaping Enjolras, the sound of him swallowing it back, the sound of his sharp breaths as he fights for control. There's the sound of Combeferre moving forward on the bed, Enjolras' breathing muffled against his shoulder.

Grantaire's face freezes, and Feuilly knows it chilled the other man as frightfully as it has him. Perhaps worse, given Grantaire's shocked, beaten expression.

And then Grantaire's on his feet, running down the hall toward his room.

But Feuilly won't let him get away this time.

"Grantaire!" he calls, keeping his voice as low as he can so he won't alert Combeferre and Enjolras, or Courfeyrac, who needs his sleep, or Marius, who's tending to Gavroche downstairs, making sure the little boy they all want to protect is alright after witnessing the horrific condition of one of his heroes. "Grantaire!"

Grantaire doesn't heed him, but he's also forgotten that Feuilly learned to run fast during the time he spent on the streets, and he hasn't lost the ability. Feuilly takes the door handle before Grantaire flips the lock, and catches himself on the door frame, watching Grantaire delve frantically into a trunk on the other side of the room.

He seizes something and spins around, stopping short when he catches sight of Feuilly standing in the doorway, effectively blocking any further escape. He holds a wine bottle in both hands, clutching it so tightly his knuckles pop white.

Feuilly feels his mouth drop into a soft 'o'. He steps forward resolutely into the room, wary of Grantaire's potential to bolt.

Grantaire doesn't move.

Feuilly wraps his own hands around the bottle. Grantaire doesn't release it.

"You don't want this," Feuilly says, soft and empathetic, despite the anger coursing through his veins. He is not angry at Grantaire, he's angry at everything that's happened to Enjolras, at the injustice of it; he only wants to help Grantaire, and he doesn't want his anger getting in the way, so he tries pushing it down, focusing on the friend in front of him.

Feuilly twists the bottle. Grantaire yields. Relief rushes through Feuilly even as Grantaire drops onto his bed, hands knitting into his hair, elbows on his knees, emanating defeat. It's progress, Feuilly thinks, Grantaire barely fought him over the alcohol.

Feuilly puts the bottle down, out of sight on the other side of the room and kneels in front of Grantaire.

"Grantaire," Feuilly repeats. "_Please_ speak to me."

Finally Grantaire looks him in the eye, and Feuilly sees how red Grantaire's own are from tears. There's no stench of alcohol about him, and his hands still shake from the withdrawal, even as he stuffs them in his pockets. Combeferre told them that some physicians suggested keeping higher levels of sugar in the blood while going through withdrawal, and he'd also said if the symptoms got out of hand, he'd give Grantaire very controlled doses of Laudanum to taper off slowly if the glass of wine at dinners didn't serve. Feuilly only hoped the symptoms didn't grow worse, because he'd heard of people suffering hallucinations and seizures, depending on how severe it was.

"You should be worrying about Enjolras," Grantaire mumbles, looking back down again, shuffling his feet on the carpet. "I'm fine."

"I _am_ worrying about Enjolras," Feuilly answers, his friend's name causing a sharp pang in his chest. "I'm incredibly worried. But Enjolras is well-tended right now, and I don't want to crowd him. I'm also concerned about you. And you're a terrible liar."

"I'm a fantastic liar," Grantaire protests, and Feuilly senses the beginning of a long, ranting discourse on the topic intended to send the conversation veering off course. "Surely…"

"Grantaire," Feuilly says, more firm, cutting him off before he begins. "I know you too well for these tactics to work. Just…just sit down and talk to me alright? Or don't talk, we can simply sit here together if you like, because I don't want to be alone, and I don't think you do either. I know you're upset about Enjolras, but please, don't run from it or run from your friends."

Grantaire releases a breath, gesturing to the pair of chairs in the corner of the room, and Feuilly sits down in one of them, relief sweeping through him. He observes Grantaire silently, giving the other man the opportunity to speak without further prodding.

"I…" Grantaire starts, folding his hands together tightly in his lap. "I have never been as frightened in my life as I was when we saw Enjolras with that knife to his neck, when we heard him make that _sound_, when we saw him collapse, I…"

Grantaire trails off, clearly currently incapable of completing his thoughts, and Feuilly hears the violent emotion in his voice, hears him teetering on the edge of something. He tentatively reaches one hand over, laying it on Grantaire's forearm. Grantaire jolts up at the touch, but he doesn't jerk back, only hesitantly covers Feuilly's hand lightly with his own.

"I cannot allow this world to put out that burning light of his," Grantaire continues after a moment, voice husky. "But I fear…I don't…my mind feels utterly unhinged and I will only make it worse for him because I'm not strong enough and nothing makes sense and all I can do is sit here and wallow in it, his scream ringing in my ears and…"

"Grantaire," Feuilly whispers, squeezing his arm. "You will not make it worse, and you _can_ find it within in you to be strong."

"I'm not like you, Feuilly. You rise higher in the face of adversity, in the face of a world that dashes your dreams," Grantaire laughs, a harsh, grating sound full of self-loathing. "I have failed _every_ time…"

"That is in the past," Feuilly interrupts. "I have seen you these past weeks; every time Enjolras needed you, anytime any of us needed you…"

"I couldn't even help Combeferre carry him to the carriage," Grantaire says. "All I could do was panic and let my fear get the best of me."

"You are focusing on the negative," Feuilly replies, a fierceness in his tone usually reserved for political debates. "_You_ stood with Enjolras in front of the army general's gun, _you_ carried him through the sewers, _you_ stepped in front of Javert's gun with me. You're attempting to quit your biggest vice so that none of us will have to worry for your health in the face of losing nearly half our friends. You have tried to be there for Enjolras ever since the barricade fell, I have seen the changes in you, my friend."

"Because of _Enjolras_," Grantaire insists. "And because of the friendship of all of you. Those are the reasons for the changes, changes I couldn't make until we nearly _lost_ Enjolras. And now I fear we _have_ lost him, Feuilly, he isn't…"

"You did make the changes because of Enjolras and because of us, yes," Feuilly says evenly. "But it's because Enjolras sparked something that already lived within you, and the bonds between all of us held you together. Enjolras needs us _all_ now. He has always needed _all_ of us, he's never hidden that fact. We all spark the fire, as he might say. And that includes you. We…we are a family Grantaire, and we will hold him up, put him back together, whatever is required."

Grantaire nods, still looking uncertain, still looking slightly outside himself, but Feuilly feels the slight squeeze of his arm, an indication that Grantaire promises to try.

"As for sitting here idly and waiting," Feuilly says, an idea popping into his head, an idea he's been planting in Grantaire's mind ever since they met. "Sometimes I find I need an outlet for myself, and usually that means either reading or painting. Sketching sometimes, too, and Valjean insisted on purchasing a few sketchpads, some pencils, even some small paints…"

"I don't paint or draw anymore, Feuilly," Grantaire says flatly, but he's less snappish that he has been in the past when the subject came up. "You know that."

"Now that _is_ a lie," Feuilly remarks. "I snuck a look at some of the drawings you tried hiding in your rooms, once. Drawings of all of us together, drawings of Enjolras. They were beautiful, Grantaire."

"I don't_ usually_ draw or paint anymore, then," Grantaire answers.

"Well," Feuilly says, taking his other hand now. "I am determined to change your mind about that. And sometimes, I've found, art is a balm for the soul in the times of our greatest strife."

"Did you read that somewhere?" Grantaire asks, lips curving up into a wry half-smile.

"No," Feuilly says, returning the smile. "It's just the truth."

Grantaire doesn't respond, and returns to looking at his hands, so Feuilly gets up from his chair, heading to the door.

"Tired of me already?" Grantaire asks.

"Never," Feuilly answers sincerely. "I'll just be a moment."

He leaves Grantaire, heading down the hallway to his room, and fetching one of the three sketchpads Valjean bought for him, along with the small set of oil paints and a few sheets of paper, then heads back.

"Feuilly, I'm not…"

"I'll just leave them here with you," Feuilly cuts in. "Just in case you change your mind. Now what do you say we go and find some tea and perhaps some sort of food? None of us have eaten, and I think Marius, Gavroche, and Cosette might appreciate our company. Then we need to sleep."

"I'm not particularly hungry," Grantaire answers, peering over at the art materials.

"I'm not either," Feuilly admits. "But Enjolras would want us to take care of ourselves. He sacrificed a great deal to keep us safe, and I'm not taking that for granted."

Grantaire meets his eyes and nods, following his lead down the stairs.


	25. On Time, Togetherness, and Terror

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello everyone! I am so very sorry for the delay in my usual updating schedule, I was out of town for a few days and life just generally got a bit hectic. But here you are, the next chapter! A quite a long one! Thank you again for all of your fabulous feedback, it is ever and always appreciated, and thank you to everyone reading. I've had a few questions about Javert, so just to let everyone know, I haven't forgotten him! We will be checking back in with our dear inspector.

A special thanks to ariadneslostthread, my wonderful beta reader and fandom spouse, because this chapter would not be what it is without her. Enjoy!

Chapter 25: On Time, Togetherness, and Terror

Courfeyrac awakes suddenly, heart racing in his chest. He sits up slowly, slightly dizzy, and pours himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table, steadying his hands. He breathes in deep so that his heart might calm. He'd had a dark, jumbled nightmare that he scarcely remembers even though he awoke just moments ago, but finds he'd rather not recall in any case.

Sunlight falls in sheaths across his floor, streaks of orange and pink spraying the sky outside his window. It's early still, but he'd slept for nearly fifteen hours after Combeferre sent him to bed, he realizes when he looks at the clock. He'd woken up several times in the night, drenched in anxious sweat and tempted to jolt up from bed and go check on Enjolras, to check he's breathing and alive and there. But he'd stayed, attempting sleep once more so that he wouldn't be dead on his feet when he awoke, so that he might be able to do whatever was necessary to help Enjolras, to help Combeferre to help himself, to help anyone, because all he wants right now is to _do_, to assist, to comfort, because if he sits here and thinks too much he fears he'll go mad.

_It will be alright_, he tells himself. _It will be alright. We are together._

Bossuet's voice sounds in his mind, the familiar sound making his heart ache for missing him.

"_Who can ever say I'm truly unlucky," Bossuet had said once during a late night at the Musain or the Corinth, Courfeyrac can't remember which, a night when they'd convinced even Enjolras and Combeferre to put down their work, all of them sitting together, cravats loosened and feet propped up on the tables, soaking in the mere joy of togetherness. "When I have friends such as the eight of you?"_

Memories are a double-edged sword, Courfeyrac thinks, as he pulls on his dressing gown, hurting and healing in one fell swoop. His eyes fall on the unopened letter he notices someone slid under his door, from his parents no doubt. He pockets it, intending to read it once he's sat down to breakfast. He hasn't eaten for near twenty-four hours, he realizes, and thinks with a rush of worry that it must have been even longer since Enjolras ate, since he drank anything other than the half cup of tea upon his return yesterday or the bitter Laudanum forced down his throat.

Silence coats the house as he walks out of his bedroom, but it's a better type of quiet than the previous evening, when it very much felt as if anyone feared making a single sound. Now there's the peaceful calm of a sleeping household, but Courfeyrac feels an air of anxious worry slicing through nevertheless. The door to Enjolras' room is cracked open, so Courfeyrac enters noiselessly; Valjean sits in a chair by the bedside, and Courfeyrac's heart warms at seeing Combeferre sleeping next to Enjolras, hands intertwined as if Combeferre fears Javert will come once again and rip Enjolras from him in sleep.

"You convinced Combeferre to sleep, I see?" Courfeyrac whispers, standing next to Valjean's chair.

"Hmm," Valjean says, a small, close-mouthed smile on his lips. "He protested a bit, but he was falling asleep in this chair. Couldn't quite get him to his own bed, however."

"I'm not surprised," Courfeyrac says, contemplating the two men whose souls are so intertwined with his own that sometimes he feels as if they are three parts of a whole. "If Combeferre hadn't sent me to bed earlier I'd likely have piled in there with them. We aren't shy with each other, the lot of us."

"So I've gathered," Valjean says fondly, a yawn marring his words, though he tries suppressing the sound.

"You have to be tired," Courfeyrac says. "You haven't slept for nearly two days, almost."

"I have a knack for going without sleeping," Valjean admits. "But Feuilly is actually coming in to take over for me once he retrieves some breakfast from downstairs."

"Ah, good then," Courfeyrac answers. "Did Enjolras…did he wake at all during the night, or?"

"Not once," Valjean says, frowning slightly now. "At first I was concerned he didn't, but I realized just how much Laudanum Javert must have given him, and that is an incredibly potent substance, so it's not altogether surprising."

Almost as if on cue, Combeferre's eyes start fluttering open at Valjean's words. They open fully after a moment, landing first on Enjolras, still sleeping beside him, watching the shallow but steady in and out of Enjolras' breathing for a solid fifteen seconds before his eyes flit to Valjean, then to Courfeyrac.

"Good morning," he says, voice thick with sleep as he sits up as carefully as possible so he doesn't wake Enjolras, looking momentarily confused when he realizes he's still dressed in his clothes from the day before. "What time is it?"

"Just after eight in the morning," Valjean answers.

Combeferre nods, looking again at Enjolras chest rising and falling, breaths still shallow; there's a spot of color returned to his cheeks now, the bluish tinge gone from his lips, but drops of sweat still gather at his hairline, and Courfeyrac knows not whether that stems from the Laudanum overdose or from a fever.

"His breathing's still shallow, but it's improving," Combeferre remarks, and Courfeyrac knows he's entering fully into medical mode right now in order to keep focus, because his emotions threaten to overcome him completely. Something in Combeferre's eyes when he meets Courfeyrac's own tells him that he found out a piece of what happened to Enjolras in the jail, tells him that they'll speak later.

Courfeyrac moves over to other side of the bed where Combeferre sits, placing both hands on his friend's shoulders.

"Why don't you go change and freshen up?" he suggests. "Feuilly is coming to take over for Valjean here in a moment, and Feuilly's hands are ever capable. Go freshen up and allow me to bring you something to eat."

"Enjolras hasn't…" Combeferre protests.

"Eaten?" Courfeyrac finishes. "I know. But you cannot do your best by him if you don't take care of yourself, hmm?"

Combeferre almost chuckles at the familiar words, words that generally leave his own mouth rather than Courfeyrac's and obliges with a nod. Courfeyrac musses Combeferre's hair affectionately before returning to the other side of the bed, resting his hand delicately on Enjolras' cheek, feeling the warmth of the slight fever tangible beneath his fingers. Then he turns toward Valjean, who watches him with keen eyes.

"Thank you," Courfeyrac says, releasing a breath. "In the madness of our return, I don't think we thanked you properly; for saving Enjolras' life, for somehow convincing Javert to leave…for not being furious with us for following you when you bid us not to."

"It is…" Valjean starts.

"A favor that we have not an inkling of how to repay," Combeferre finishes. "When I saw the knife pressed up against Enjolras' throat, saw the mad look in J-that man's eyes, I thought…" Combeferre pauses, unable to say Javert's name and unwilling to articulate the horrific image Courfeyrac knows plagues all their minds, the image of Javert slicing the knife across Enjolras' artery, of crimson blood spurting forth and splashing on the dirt. Of Enjolras sliding from Javert's grasp and onto the ground, dead.

"I thought all might be lost," Combeferre finishes. "But you talked him down, and I'm still not altogether sure how. But we are grateful. So very grateful." Combeferre's eyes flit to the still sleeping Enjolras, hand instinctively touching their friend's arm.

"I know Javert," Valjean says simply. "And I also knew you might follow me there." He smiles slightly, an attempt at sternness in his tone. "And I'll admit, it did worry me when you showed up, but you read the situation, you listened to me, that's what's important."

Courfeyrac observes as Valjean tucks a stray blond stand behind Enjolras' ear, smiling at the gesture; he knows it can't be easy for the older man to let new people into his life like this, and it means more than Courfeyrac can quite express at the moment.

"Well, I'm off to find some breakfast for the both of us," he says, looking back at Combeferre. "You go do as said, all right? Enjolras will be well-tended with Feuilly for a little while. I'll bring the pastries to your room, shall I?"

Combeferre nods, clearly knowing that arguing with Courfeyrac would be rather fruitless.

"Get some rest monsieur," Courfeyrac adds, clasping Valjean's shoulder for a moment.

With that he turns to go, closing the door behind him lest the noise of the awakening household rouse Enjolras from his much needed sleep. He's so deep in thought that when he reaches the top of the stairs he nearly collides with Feuilly. He carries a small tray in his hands, and it's only Feuilly's well-trained reflexes that keep it from toppling to the carpet.

"Oh Feuilly," Courfeyrac says, hands darting out and steadying the tray. "I'm so sorry my friend, I wasn't paying the slightest attention."

"It's all right, Courf," Feuilly responds, an affectionate light in his weary dark brown eyes. "I think we're all a bit out of sorts."

Courfeyrac looks at Feuilly for a moment, truly looks at him, seeing the sprinkling of freckles spreading from his nose to his cheeks, tanned skin from his fondness for reading in the park when he had a spare moment, the ginger hair hanging in his eyes for lack of a haircut and not held back by his usual cap, the faded paint stains on his hands. Suddenly, he has the incurable desire to pull Feuilly forward and embrace him fully, telling him how much he means to him, how much he loves him, how much he appreciates him.

"Courfeyrac?" Feuilly presses. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, sorry," Courfeyrac replies. "I was simply admiring your rather handsome face in the morning light. Ladies like artists Feuilly, we shall have to go out on the town in Avignon."

"I'm sure you'll see to it," Feuilly says, chuckling.

"I certainly will," Courfeyrac says. "And if you go out for a night of frivolity with me, Enjolras might follow, despite his protests when I try convincing him myself, because 'if Feuilly goes well then we must _all_ go. If Feuilly makes time for a night out then we must _all_ make time' is usually what I hear, even if ten minutes previously he protested that he was far too busy for a nice supper and a theater engagement."

"Oh hush," Feuilly says, chuckling still even as he blushes.

Silence falls between them for a moment, the gravity of the situation returning amidst their moment of lightheartedness.

"I'm going to take over for Valjean," Feuilly says. "Have you been in this morning?"

"I have," Courfeyrac answers. "I'm just going down to retrieve some breakfast for Combeferre and myself. I had to convince him to go freshen himself up and eat. Do you mind sitting with Enjolras for a bit while I take that to him?"

"Not at all," Feuilly says. "Though I know both of you are loathe to leave him for even a moment. But it will do me good to sit with him for bit, convinces me he's actually here with us."

"Yes," Courfeyrac says, nodding. "Yes I know exactly what you mean. If he'll have me, there will likely soon be a Courfeyrac shaped indentation in his bed, I imagine."

Feuilly laughs again, and Courfeyrac revels in the sound. He wants to make Enjolras laugh like that, wants to hear the dignified, restrained chuckle turn into true laughter, sides shaking from mirth. It's never occurred to him how similar Enjolras and Feuilly's laughter is, but now he hears it, hears it so clearly it hurts when Bahorel's loud, booming laughter rings in his head and mixes with Feuilly's, melding memory and reality into one.

"Did you manage to speak with R?" Courfeyrac asks, forcing himself back into the present.

"I did," Feuilly says, even more worry darkening his eyes. "Took some doing, but I managed to talk to him, I do hope it was helpful…"

"I'm sure it was," Courfeyrac assures him, utterly sincere.

"He's absolutely broken up over seeing Enjolras this way," Feuilly replies. "I mean we all are of course, but you know Grantaire, sometimes it's almost as if all his belief in life is tied up in Enjolras, and I'll admit, I'm worried. The withdrawal is…worse than I initially thought; he's more fragile than normal, and in light of all that's happened…"

"We'll keep an eye on him," Courfeyrac says, frowning in concern, feeling more anxiety take up residence in his heart, flowing through him like a toxin and adding to the growing prickling sensation in his stomach. "I'm relieved he let you in, at least. That may prove important later if he tries shutting us out."

Feuilly nods again. "You go get those pastries for yourself and Combeferre," he says, shooing Courfeyrac away. "I'll take care of Enjolras for a bit."

With that he goes, allowing Courfeyrac to place a bisou on his cheek before pushing the door to Enjolras' room open with his foot.

Courfeyrac walks swiftly down the stairs with every intention of heading to the kitchen, where he suspects Madame Bellard and Toussaint are already up and setting out the breakfast pastries; the two women became fast friends, and are invigorated at having a whole household full of people to take care of, and Courfeyrac knows just how to smile at the two of them so they'll give him the pastries fresh from the oven. He walks past the small sitting room nestled to the right of the stairs, the one they often frequent because of the particularly comfortable chairs, stopping short when he spots Marius sitting within, staring at something that causes Courfeyrac's heart to contract painfully.

Enjolras' cane.

It's propped up against the chair their chief usually frequents; Gavroche picked the cane up from its place on the floor after Javert kicked it away from Enjolras, setting it up in the chair in the hope of Enjolras' return.

No one has touched it since.

"Marius?" Courfeyrac asks softly, leaning in the doorway.

Marius jumps, clearly so lost in thought he didn't hear Coufeyrac's approach.

"Oh, Courfeyrac," he says, looking up, his paler than usual face indicating that he hasn't slept a great deal. "I didn't hear you coming."

"Clearly," Courfeyrac replies, a half-smile quirking at his lips. He fully enters the room now, taking a seat on the ottoman of Marius' chair. "Are you all right, my friend?"

Marius continues his vigil staring at the chair, mahogany cane propped up against the arm.

"Marius?" Courfeyrac tries, worry swooping through his stomach at his friend's lack of response.

Marius jerks, eyes finally meeting Courfeyrac's.

"I apologize," Marius replies. "I was only…"

"Thinking of Enjolras," Courfeyrac finishes when Marius trails off.

"Yes," Marius answers, a lost glimmer in his eyes, mixed with a sadness so deep it adds to Courfeyrac's own.

"As are we all," Courfeyrac says, reaching for Marius' hand and holding it tightly in his own.

"How is he?" Marius asks, squeezing Courfeyrac's hand.

"Sleeping still," Courfeyrac says. "Feuilly just took over Valjean's shift. Combeferre awoke and went to freshen himself up; I told him I'd bring him up some breakfast in a bit."

"You should do that then," Marius says, gesturing toward the kitchen. "Don't worry over me."

"I shall worry over you if I so choose," Courfeyrac chides. "Combeferre won't mind, he might like a few minutes to himself while he cleans up. Talk to me."

Marius nods, eyes flitting from Courfeyrac to the chair then back to Courfeyrac.

"I only…" Marius begins. "I just…"

"Take your time," Courfeyrac says, taking Marius' other hand in his own.

"I know I haven't known Enjolras quite as long as the rest of you," Marius says, finally completing his thought. "And I know I'm younger, less experienced in all of this, but I look up to all of you, look up to him, and seeing him like that yesterday, I never expected it, I suppose. He's as human as the rest of us, I know, but sometimes it just…doesn't seem it."

"I don't think any of us ever envisioned this situation," Courfeyrac admits, turning around and gazing at the solitary cane.

"_I'm sure I don't need a cane, Combeferre," Enjolras had said just a week ago._ _"I can manage the stairs on my own, I'm certain."_

"_And I'm certain you __**do**__ need one,"_ _Combeferre argued amiably_.

"_Indulge us_," _Courfeyrac had said. _"_Allow us the role of worrisome old codgers. You should listen to your elders, Enjolras."_

"_My elders!" Enjolras exclaims. "Combeferre is seven months older than me and you scarcely two."_

"_See there? Elders."_

_Enjolras' lips had quirked up ever so slightly_

"_Worrisome old codgers indeed, my elders_."

"I was just remembering something," Marius says, drawing Courfeyrac out of his thoughts. "It was when you graciously allowed me to lodge with you, it couldn't have been more than the third or fourth time I'd met the Amis, and I went with you to a rally. I remember watching Enjolras, listening to him speak to the crowd outside the Musain, remember the power in his voice, how enraptured the people were."

"I remember that day," Courfeyrac says. "As I recall it turned into an accidental riot when the police arrived. Seemed to think we were causing trouble."

"Yes," Marius nods. "And one of the officers went for Joly, I think because he mistook the cane for a weapon, and then Enjolras was there, sliding in between them and taking the hit from the truncheon himself. An altercation followed, and…"

"Enjolras spent a few nights in La Force," Courfeyrac says grimly. "That was the first time it ever happened, because we always did our best to show discretion so we could keep working, but sometimes it was unavoidable. Combeferre was worried sick."

"_You_ were worried sick," Marius teases lightly. "Everyone was. But I just remember, Enjolras didn't even look afraid when the officer threw him in the fiacre. And even if he was, it didn't show in his expression. And everyone waited in your rooms the night Combeferre and Bahorel went to pick Enjolras up, and he was far more concerned about everyone else than he was himself, and he's the one who had been in prison. And then he got back to work, like nothing had happened, that same undying intensity in his eyes. He seemed so unbreakable then."

"Aside from his ribs," Courfeyrac says. "He got kicked in the cell and bruised a few of them rather badly, nearly drove Combeferre and Joly to distraction when they put him on bed rest."

Marius chuckles softly, but there's still a great deal of unrest in his eyes.

"He's…" Courfeyrac begins, but Marius has not quite finished his thought.

"I just, I rather despise the world for doing this to him," Marius continues, tears brimming forth in his tone. "It's exceedingly wrong somehow, I just…"

"I know," Courfeyrac says, squeezing Marius' hands with the utmost warmth. "I know exactly. But don't lose faith in the world just yet; things may be admittedly awful at the moment, but Enjolras wouldn't hear of you losing faith in the world, in people. Enjolras has been knocked down, that's for certain, he's bruised and beaten, but he _will_ get back up. With our help and for every hope-filled bone in his body, he will get back up. It's just a matter of needing time. We all require some time, I think."

Courfeyrac looks Marius directly in the eyes when he speaks, feeling a certainty spread into his own heart as he watches it flood Marius' eyes.

Marius nods, releasing one of Courfeyrac's hands and running a hand through his mussed hair.

"You are right," he replies, and Courfeyrac feels his friend's rapid pulse through the thin skin of his wrist. "You are absolutely right. I just…it pains me, seeing him that way. On top of everything else that's happened, losing the others…"

Courfeyrac feels the familiar sock to the gut at the mention of their deceased friends, at the mention of the loss of the barricade, but instead of focusing on the swoop of an emotional pain so deep in manifests in a physical manner, he focuses on the friend in front of him, the friend who needs him right now.

"You are in fine company in these respects, my dear Marius," Courfeyrac says softly. He pauses. "Might you like to see Enjolras? Even if he's sleeping? It might do you some good. Perhaps we ought to find Gavroche as well."

"Oh, no, I doubt he's up to a flood of visitors in his room," Marius protests, but Courfeyrac hears the change in his voice at the mention of the idea. "It's alright."

"I'm sure he'll consent to a moment to put your mind at ease," Courfeyrac says, knowing it's true; Enjolras likely won't want a crowd of people around him right now, but Courfeyrac's certain he won't mind a few short hellos if it means his friends rest easier.

"Well, if Enjolras allows it and Combeferre thinks it all right," Marius concedes. "And I think Gavroche is out in the garden, I saw him dash out earlier, and he said he wanted to be alone for a little while."

Concern for the resilient, street-smart little boy washes over Courfeyrac, but he also knows that if Gavroche wants some solitary time, then he will respect that.

"We should allow him some time to process," Coufeyrac says. "But if you could catch him when he comes in, and wait for me? I'm going to speak with Combeferre and then see if Enjolras is awake and up to a hello. I think it might do all of you some good."

"Thank you, Courfeyrac," Marius says softly, quiet earnestness in every word, the unassuming intelligence Courfeyrac has always admired clear behind his eyes. "For everything."

Courfeyrac smiles: he's taken aback when Marius launches his gangly arms around his neck, but hugs him back tightly in return after a moment. Always a little awkward, always a little unsure, Marius isn't nearly as tactile as Courfeyrac because of his generally nervous disposition, so when Marius shows physical affection, Courfeyrac knows it's a sign of an outpouring of emotion. He's noticed however, that Cosette's entrance into Marius' life has made quite a difference in this regard, and he smiles wider at the thought of their happiness. And then nearly laughs at the idea that Marius once referred to her as Ursula before he even knew her name.

"You are most welcome Marius," Courfeyrac replies, words muffled slightly into his friend's shirt, a thought presenting itself in his mind. "Did you still have your plans to propose to Cosette soon?"

Marius pulls back, looking confused.

"Well…yes, of course," he answers, stretching out the words. "I was planning on taking a journey into Avignon in three days, actually, taking her to this restaurant I know she'll love, but I with everything going on, with Enjolras…"

"The best thing you can do for Enjolras is to keep with your plans," Courfeyrac says, firm but kind. "He wouldn't want you interrupting such important plans on his behalf, and I'm sure it would make him happy to see the joy on yours and Cosette's faces."

"_It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter I do pronounce it. And I glorify it_," Marius whispers, repeating Enjolras' words from the barricade.

"Exactly," Courfeyrac says, patting Marius' cheek. "I'll be back in bit."

Marius nods, opening the book of Lamartine poetry he'd just begun upon finishing a volume of English Romantic poetry. Courfeyrac walks past, hesitating for a moment before seizing the cane and tucking it under his arm. It wouldn't bite him, certainly, and Enjolras would need it once he was up and about again. He bids good morning to Toussaint and Madame Bellard, both of whom ask after Enjolras, and pile more pastries than either he or Combeferre could possibly eat onto his tray, along with a pot of tea, and send him back upstairs. He walks carefully up the stairs this time, knocking when he reaches Combeferre's door.

"Are you decent in there?" he teases.

"Quite," Combeferre responds dryly. "Come in."

Courfeyrac does, placing the tray down on the large dresser and turning toward Combeferre, who's dressed in a fresh shirt and trousers, though he's still devoid of a waistcoat or a cravat; if they're just spending time in the house they usually go without jackets, especially given the growing summer temperatures outside. He might have slept for near fourteen hours, but worry and weariness writes a different story in the shadows under Combeferre's eyes, in the creased lines of his forehead.

"Feel better for freshening up a bit?" Courfeyrac prods, hoping for a bit more than just an answer to the actual question he's posing.

"A bit," Combeferre affirms, gesturing for Courfeyrac to sit, taking one of the pastries and nibbling at the edge. "I didn't know, but Valjean had the letter dispatched to Flora last evening, as soon as he could. So she should get the news in two days or so, three at most, if the post is slow."

"You sound concerned about that," Courfeyrac says, sensing an edge in Combeferre's tone.

"Only that Aubry will inevitably hear the news as well," Combeferre mutters, referring to Enjolras' father. "He's not a bad man, certainly, he means well, from what I can tell. And he's no monarchist, how could he be, really, what with his wife's American lineage, but he does _not_ understand Enjolras, not in the slightest."

"Thinks his son is wasting his life," Courfeyrac chimes in, feeling for the letter in his dressing gown pocket and pulling it out, thumb running over the paper. He'd read the letter while he waited for the tea to brew. It was a request from his father for his return home, and a plea from his mother. Courfeyrac still speaks to his father, as their fights have not yet reached that level, but he knows exactly how Enjolras feels in this respect. Combeferre's eyes catch on the letter, but he lets the matter rest at seeing the expression on Courfeyrac's face. Both of them know Courfeyrac won't be returning home, at least not for more than a few days' visit, and it won't be at present, but he will need to write his family. Courfeyrac envies Combeferre a bit in this moment; Combeferre's parents are merchants who own a successful business in Arras, and though they worry for their son's activism, surely have asked him not to risk his life, they support him. They'd hoped he would take over the business, and while slightly baffled at Combeferre's medical ambitions, they agreed to pay for his schooling. Combeferre's the black sheep of his family, but he's a more accepted black sheep.

"And their last meeting was unpleasant, to say the least" Courfeyrac continues. "I'll never forget how quietly furious Enjolras was when he returned from that visit."

"He's seen Flora, seen his grandmother plenty of times," Combeferre says. "But he hasn't seen Aubry since that day, since that massive argument, that literal and metaphorical slap in the face, that day he told Enjolras he was wasting his life, that he was a monumental disappointment." Combeferre sighs. "He wanted Enjolras to sit for the bar, join a firm, get married to a noble woman, and eventually inherit the estate and move back to Marseille and live a quiet life. Doesn't seem to understand that the politics, the republicanism, the revolution, is not just some youthful passing fancy. All of that _is _Enjolras."

"Well," Courfeyrac says, taking a sip of the tea Combeferre pours him. "He did pass the bar, flying colors and all, at the same time as me. And he would have joined a firm if he did not become a fugitive shortly after, but I doubt it would have been the sort of firm his father would choose. And if Aubry thinks Enjolras is the sort to marry a woman and move to the countryside and settle down with children to live some sort of quiet life, then…"

"He doesn't know Enjolras," Combeferre finishes.

"No," Courfeyrac replies. "But let us not worry about that right now, all right my friend? Let us focus on what's in front of us. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Combeferre says, far too quickly.

"Combeferre," Courfeyrac says, uncharacteristically stern. "You are a most frightful liar. If you do not at least admit your own distress right now, you won't be able to help Enjolras through this. And he needs us."

A half-smile tugs at Combeferre's lips, but it's wrenched with melancholy, and suddenly it seems as if Combeferre fights for his composure. Courfeyrac moves from his chair, hastily squatting in front of Combeferre, who pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. Observant as he is, Courfeyrac knows when both of his best friends are battling tears; Enjolras presses his thumb and forefingers against his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Combeferre does this. Coufeyrac takes Combeferre's face in his hands, forcing Combeferre's gaze to him.

"I'm just so damned angry," Combeferre says, voice gravely. "I want to find Javert and I…I want to…"

"Make him hurt the way he's hurt Enjolras?"

"I…yes," Combeferre admits. "But that's…it's horrible. I shouldn't even think that, but he made this so much _worse_."

"It's only natural to feel that way," Courfeyrac says, resting his head against Combeferre's own. "I feel that way. What happened in that jail, Combeferre?"

"A prostitute was wounded," Combeferre explains. "And Enjolras tried helping her, tried everything but they wouldn't call for a doctor until it was too late. She died in his arms. And then he said he completely lost his temper on Javert, said he'd never lost control in such a way, and that led to an altercation with Javert, hence why they started drugging him."

"How many doses?"

"Three and half in less than eight hours," Combeferre answers, grim. Combeferre closes his eyes as Courfeyrac slides the spectacles on the top of his head, massaging his temples for a moment.

"Christ," Coufeyrac mutters, continuing his ministrations, and Combeferre leans into the touch. "It's no damn wonder he was covered in blood and completely out of sorts."

Silence falls; there are so many things to say, and yet they cannot all be said in one moment.

"We'd best get back to him, I think," Combeferre says, running a hand through Courfeyrac's bed-head curls. "Thank you."

"As ever," Courfeyrac says. "Lead the way."

They enter, Combeferre still shoeless and Courfeyrac still in his dressing gown, and find Feuilly whispering softly to a just awakening Enjolras, his finger marking the place in a volume on Polish politics buried deep within the rather expansive library contained within the Gillenormand home. Enjolras' hand grasps Feuilly's free one securely and there's a wan smile on his face, but Courfeyrac' sees his friend's rapid breathing, the darting eyes: there's every sign of panic on Enjolras' features, and that's not something to which Courfeyrac is accustomed. He's seen fleeting panic rush across Enjolras' face, seen him swallow it, seen him bury it deep beneath his eyes, mostly in the midst of both of the barricades they fought upon. But it was always gone as quick as it came, action taken, crisis handled, so seeing this unbridled, barely controlled panic in Enjolras' demeanor unsettles him.

"Ah, you're back," Feuilly says, turning toward the door, and Enjolras' eyes follow him, landing on first on Courfeyrac, then Combeferre.

His breathing slows just a fraction.

"We have returned from our gallant quest to find nourishment in the far off land that is the kitchen," Courfeyrac says, setting the tray down with a dramatic flourish in the barest hope of drawing just the whisper of a laugh from Enjolras.

Enjolras looks up at him; a near silent, nervous chuckle escapes him, mixed with the smallest hint of genuine amusement trapped within the confines of his haunted eyes.

"Enjolras was just mentioning his hunger," Feuilly says, squeezing Enjolras' hand. "So you've returned just in time."

Courfeyrac sees Enjolras' free hand trembling, eyes boring into Combeferre's, watching the latter seat himself wordlessly on the opposite side of the bed and take Enjolras' hand in his own without even breaking the conversation.

"When was the last time you ate? I thought to ask when I checked you over but you were so exhausted I couldn't bear to force you awake any longer than necessary."

"I…" Enjolras thinks for a moment. "Before…before I was arrested."

Forty-eight hours, Courfeyrac thinks with a swoop of anger. Forty-eight hours. They hadn't even given him a crust of bread while he'd been in jail. Nothing.

"Well let's start off with the tea, shall we?" Combeferre says. "And see how that sits. Then we can try a croissant. Does that sound fine?"

Enjolras nods his assent.

"Well, I'm going to go and see if I can rouse Grantaire," Feuilly says. "Now that I know you are in capable hands, Enjolras."

"Thank you, Feuilly," Enjolras says, a true smile lighting up his face now, a smile sending the tiniest rush of relief through Courfeyrac's veins.

"Any time," Feuilly says, and Courfeyrac hears the tremor in his voice, sees the way his eyes linger on Enjolras' face before he ducks his head and exits, leaving them.

Enjolras' pulse and breathing slow visibly under Combeferre's touch, slow even further once Courfeyrac sits down on the bed beside him, but as the door closes Enjolras presses a hand to his heart and breathes out slowly a few times, exhaling huffs of air in ragged gasps.

"What is wrong with me, Combeferre?" Enjolras asks, voice shaky with nerves. "I can't quite…I don't…you weren't here and I just…panicked."

"Stress, and trauma," Combeferre explains calmly, beginning his usual checks which calms Enjolras more in their familiarity. "And probably the fact that I slept in this bed with you all night, and you suddenly found I wasn't here. It's no shock you're having problems with anxiety given all that's happened, but it will all pass I assure you. You _do_ sound better this morning, damn Laudanum finally wearing off, I think."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"You slept for about five hours before I woke you yesterday afternoon to check you over, then another fourteen or so, I believe. Are you feeling better for it? "

Enjolras nods distractedly, eyes on his hands, examining them, looking lost.

Combeferre's hand covers Enjolras' again, warm and familiar and safe, and Courfeyrac follows his lead, reaching for Enjolras' other hand.

"Do you remember coming home?" Combeferre asks, and Courfeyrac hears the trepidation, the worry, the love running through his tone.

Another nod and Courfeyrac hopes this isn't a return to the silence of yesterday before Enjolras speaks quietly. "Yes. I..." he pauses, the memories playing out against the thin skin of his eyelids. "Thank you," he says, opening them again.

"You are most welcome," Combeferre replies, voice almost a whisper, as if he doesn't trust its ability to remain stable. He clears his throat, running his thumb up and down the skin of Enjolras' hand in a motion of reassurance when he speaks again.

"You're still feverish but not alarmingly so, and your breathing is still a bit shallow for my liking," Combeferre admits. "And I know you must be in pain, but I want to avoid any more Laudanum for another twenty-four hours at least, just to be careful, and then we can start giving you doses again as needed. But I'd like to put you on bed rest for a few days. You've been through an ordeal on both a physical and emotional level."

"Yes," Enjolras says, gazing rather longingly at the tea and the croissant on the silver tray. "Whatever you think is best. Whatever you wish."

Combeferre's eyes flit up and meet Courfeyrac's for the briefest moment; Enjolras would give into Combeferre or Joly's medical suggestions, or when it came to it, orders when bothered enough, but _never_ this easily, not once.

Courfeyrac hands over the cup of tea and Enjolras takes it, but his hands still tremble badly enough that the tea splashes over the edge.

"Dammit," Enjolras breathes, but allows Courfeyrac to hold it for him, hungrily gulping down the tea.

"Marius and Gavroche were asking after you," Coufeyrac begins once Enjolras drains the cup. "And I was wondering if you might be up to letting them briefly say hello, and it's perfectly fine if you're not, Enjolras, I want to be clear on that."

"I might only be able to manage a few minutes," Enjolras answers. "But if seeing me would make them rest easier, I'm glad to do that. Is that all right with you, Combeferre?"

"Perfectly," Combeferre says, busying himself with buttering half the croissant. "Only please let us know when you tire? Whether that's physically or emotionally."

Enjolras nods again, and Courfeyrac presses a kiss to his forehead before darting downstairs once more. But he's only just returned with Marius and Gavroche in tow when Feuilly darts back into the room, clearly distressed, several pieces of sketching paper twisted in his hands.

"I'm so sorry," he says, breathless and apologetic. "But…Combeferre, Grantaire, he's…" his eyes rove toward Enjolras, and it's obvious he doesn't want to burden his friend further.

"What is it Feuilly?" Enjolras asks, seeing the expression, but clearly wanting Feuilly to know it's all right to speak in front of him. "What's wrong?"

"He's asking for you, Enjolras, begging… and he's burning up," Feuilly says, looking at Enjolras before turning to Combeferre. "He's…he's hallucinating, but he can't or won't say what he sees but…Combeferre, look at this…" Feuilly pushes the handful of drawings he's clutching into Combeferre's hands.

"What?" Courfeyrac says, speaking first. "Hallucinating? Why?"

"The alcohol withdrawal," Combeferre says, eyes roving over the pictures with a furrowed brow as he instantly rises. "That mixed with the trauma of the past few days, it isn't surprising…I should have… take me to him Feuilly, please."

"I'm coming," Enjolras says, direct and without mincing words, and despite the situation, the familiarity of it calms Courfeyrac.

"Enjolras," Combeferre chides half-heartedly. "I don't know…"

"Please, Combeferre, if Grantaire's asking for me I should go to him," Enjolras replies, sounding more confident than he has all morning, more like himself the moment he realizes one of their friends needs help, because it's a purpose, it's _action_, and it allows Enjolras an escape from his mind, a chance to help someone who means a great deal to them all. "I will do _exactly_ as you instruct, I will stay out of the way if you tell me to do so, and if you ask me to leave, if my presence exacerbates Grantaire's hallucinations, I will go the moment you say the word."

Courfeyrac watches the two of them, watches them survey each other, but both men know that Enjolras' presence will likely do more good than harm, and Courfeyrac sees Combeferre relenting. Combeferre nods after a moment, and Gavroche, spotting the cane where Courfeyrac posted it by the door, runs over and retrieves it, handing it to Enjolras.

"Thank you very much Gavroche," Enjolras says, offering the little boy a smile, and Courfeyrac moves to his other side, taking the weight, because he knows how much even a simple trek down the hallway hurts Enjolras at this moment, hurts the man who mere weeks ago could probably hold his own against Bahorel in a brawl. "Would you mind waiting here with Marius until I get back?"

Gavroche shakes his head, hugging Enjolras' waist briefly before letting go and stepping back toward Marius. And with that they're limping off down the hallway to something Courfeyrac dreads, Combeferre leading the way.

* * *

Paralysis pinches every nerve in Grantaire's body.

He cannot move. His eyes are fixed, wide and staring at a point on the floor before him as blood seeps into the carpet, over its edge and a pool of it creeps closer and closer to him. It is Apollo's blood, red and vibrant and vicious in every way the corpse it exits isn't.

"I've killed him Grantaire," the voice of the beast hisses, the mythical Python of Delphi he scarcely remembers drawing in his manic, sleepless state after eating with Feuilly, Marius, and Gavroche, but somehow now his drawings have come to life, all of them, and six separate monsters stare down at him, surrounding the person they've murdered.

"No," Grantaire insists, closing his eyes, but that only shuts out the visual terrors, because he cannot shut his ears. "No, Apollo defeated you. You were the first monster he ever defeated. You are darkness and hopelessness and he is light and belief and, you…"

"He is dead!" it hisses again. "He is dead and it is for the better, because he was broken, bound to turn dark and bitter and _cynical_. Just like _you_."

"No!" Grantaire shouts. "_No_. That would never happen, not in a thousand years, not for anything. He will pick up the pieces, we will _help_ him pick them up. And I am not…I am _not_ all of those things…cynical yes, self-sabotaging, but not dark, _no_, not bitter…I _try_, I am trying, I am giving up the excessive drink, I _want_ to believe, I believe in him…I _do_…"

Grantaire stops, eyes finally falling on the victim of these creatures. His heart stills in his chest, breath held tight. He cannot. He cannot be living if Apollo is dead. He cannot exist without Apollo and Apollo must be alive and burning and glorious. The corpse is not. It is Apollo, without doubt, mortal flesh in wicked mimicry of a god brought to earth. A mortal shell cracked along with the shield bearing his insignia. His hair is loose, splayed around his head like a halo, blood rapidly soaking through the blonde locks as it oozes from a wound on his forehead. His lips are white and still, another trickle of blood from their corner, stark and vivid against the paleness of his skin.

His throat is exposed, smooth and elegant save the bloody gash which gapes just above the hollow – now filled with blood. His shirt is open, fang marks deep and sick into the skin of chest, yet more bloody his shirt in ever growing roses of deepest scarlet. His shoulder, just visible beneath the gape of his collar is a mass of burnt flesh and bone from the creature's fire. Though his trousers are black, they are dark and wet with blood, ripped and ruined with holes every few inches, the blood making them stick to his skin. He is broken.

Dead.

No no no no, not broken not dead.

Grantaire gets on his knees, ignoring the creatures whispering hateful thoughts in his ear, and shakes Apollo's body.

But beneath his hands Apollo turns into Combeferre, into Coufeyrac, Feuilly, Marius, Gavroche, Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel, Jehan, Cosette, Valjean, Adrienne, his brother, and then back to Apollo.

"No!" he screams, jumping back. "They are not all dead, I know that. They are not. You cannot convince me, no."

Stumbling backwards again he presses his back against the wall, a sob wrenching from his throat.

"Oh," one of the Pythons says, slithering close. "I think I can."

* * *

Combeferre takes the lead.

He pushes open the door, and they are greeted by a floor scattered with sketches, some half-done, some complete, but they're all the same figure. It resembles a half dragon, half python, a drakon, triggering a memory in the back of Enjolras' mind from the Classics lessons he'd received as an adolescent in boarding school.

"I don't permit you to die, Apollo," Grantaire says as he rocks back and forth, eyes fixed on what appears a complete drawing, still of the same mythical creature Enjolras can't yet place, but also featuring the form of a blond-haired man, Apollo's insignia etched on his shield and the sun shining radiantly behind him in spatters of yellow oil paint. Blood and bite marks body cover his body, and it's clear he's dead. "You have not killed him, you foul monstrosity! I wouldn't have allowed it, you can't…"

Grantaire pauses, clearly hearing some sort of reply.

"No! You can't…Apollo is stronger than you…than me…he…" Grantaire's chokes out words in a flood of incoherent syllables, and Enjolras feels his heart pounding in his chest, feels his face heat from an oncoming wave of panic he refuses to let drown him.

"Hello, Grantaire," Combeferre says, gentle, striding over to Grantaire, who sits on the floor surrounded by the battering of frightful sketches. Grantaire whips around, clearly having not heard them enter. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, terror flashing like lightning within them. He looks up at Combeferre, all the horrors of his imagination written clearly across his terrified face. "I'm just going to take a little look at you."

Grantaire jumps back, but Combeferre doesn't even flinch, doesn't jerk away and an outpouring of admiration for his friend nearly overcomes Enjolras. Grantaire's eyes track Combeferre's hands as they feel his forehead and check his pulse, but they dart back to the drawings on the floor every few seconds. Enjolras hears Combeferre muttering to himself, but the dark voices in Grantaire's head overcome the sound of Combeferre's words, so he doesn't notice.

"Diaphoretic. Fever. Tremors. Hallucinations. Hypertensive. Fear. Palpitations…"

"Grantaire," Combeferre says, his voice soft as the most welcoming feather pillow. "Grantaire, can you tell me what you see?"

"What do I see?" Grantaire asks, biting out a sardonic laugh. "Combeferre you are the most intelligent man in the room, but your vision must be growing worse if you cannot see this beast talking to me." He points down at the drawing and Enjolras' eyes follow, seeing the bared teeth of the creature, the blood gushing from nearly every crevice of Apollo's body.

"Who is speaking to you, Grantaire?" Combeferre asks, kneeling down next to their friend, voice still gentle.

"The Python of Delphi, of course!" Grantaire exclaims. "Don't you know your mythology, dear guide?" he asks, jumping back suddenly as if he sees the creature hissing at him, sees it blowing fire. He grabs Combeferre's shoulders. "He's come to kill Apollo don't you see, Combeferre? Don't you _see_? You have Athena's intellect, but I don't know if even you can save him from this darkness. I'm sure Feuilly had no way of knowing that lending me a sketchpad would result in a monster coming to life! Dubious creature would have found a way regardless: it uses other people's kindness to its advantage."

And then Enjolras remembers.

The Python of Delphi was the very first monster Apollo defeated, and it was the time Grantaire mentioned this story that he first called Enjolras by that name. Bahorel had brought Grantaire along to one of his boxing lessons with Enjolras, and upon witnessing Enjolras hold up well against Bahorel's strategy, despite their significant differences in size, he'd said the words that now sock Enjolras straight in the gut.

_Well Apollo, it certainly appears as if you could hold your own against the Python of Delphi, with that anger I sense in you. There's some talent, too, so perhaps you can even slay the beast, I daresay, if you keep taking lessons from this rogue_.

Grantaire reaches for the drawing and rips it to shreds, jumping back again, a scream erupting forth from his lips as he kicks the other sketches away, paper flying through the air.

"Grantaire," Combeferre says, steadying him, desperately trying to calm him. "Nothing's going to happen, I promise you. You are ill, my friend, from the alcohol withdrawal. It's called Delirium Tremens, and it can cause hallucinations. There's no beast, I swear to you. And Enjolras is right here, do you see?" He uses his actual name, Enjolras supposes, in an attempt to draw Grantaire back into the realm of reality, if possible.

Grantaire wrenches his eyes away from the drawings, squinting in Enjolras' direction, his breathing just barely evening out. At seeing Grantaire's expression Enjolras takes hold of the bed-post, knuckles popping white as they grasp the cane.

"Enjolras don't…" Courfeyrac protests as Enjolras lowers himself awkwardly to the floor, very obviously in physical discomfort.

"Help me, Courfeyrac." A sliver of the authority and power Enjolras usually commands implores Courfeyrac to assist, and he does so, taking Enjolras' weight and hoping to spare him from most of the pain. Enjolras bites his lip against the brief wave of sharp agony, focusing back on Grantaire.

"It's alright, Grantaire," Enjolras says, at the panicked look on Grantaire's face. "I just need a moment."

Combeferre, seeing Enjolras' tactic, turns Grantaire toward Enjolras, though it takes a moment, as every few seconds Grantaire covers his ears, eyes darting back toward the pile of drawings. Combeferre squats beside Grantaire, surveying him intently. Feuilly, seeing Enjolras' shoulders trembling from the effort of walking, places two warm hands upon them, and Enjolras feels his friend's determination rush through his own veins.

"It's going to kill you Enjolras," Grantaire whispers, razor-cuts of pain indenting each syllable. "Don't let it kill you, don't. You're not real, you can't be real, it's killed you, I saw it, and now it's sent your ghost here to haunt me."

"Permit me?" Enjolras asks, reaching out his hands for Grantaire's own even as he feels his own personal monster of panic roaring to life in his chest. He's never felt this way, has never fallen victim like this to what he's heard medical professionals refer to as hysteria. He's felt monumental fear before of course, but he's confronted it, swallowed it until the crisis was handled, but even then it was not like this…this feels like the horror he experiences in his nightmares, unabated and intensified a thousand times, irrational, prickling, and raw.

Grantaire nods, closing his eyes against the specters jumping in and out of his line of vision, and holds out his hands. Enjolras takes them, placing one on his healing shoulder, and the other gingerly against the wound on his thigh, which still throbs with the effort of just walking down the hallway, even with the cane and Courfeyrac's assistance.

"Do you feel that?" Enjolras asks. "I'm no ghost, I'm just as alive and human as you are. I'm here with you Grantaire, I'm…" The world whole almost escapes his lips, but it tastes virulently like a lie, because he does not currently feel whole, and he will not lie to Grantaire. "I'm here. I'm getting better. We're here with you, all alive."

"Not all," Grantaire protests. "Not all. Joly is dead. Bossuet is dead. Bahorel is dead. Jehan is dead."

It is undeniably true, and each of their friends' names stabs Enjolras deep in the gut and twists, but he nods nevertheless because he wants to help Grantaire, wants to calm him and soothe him if he can. Enjolras remembers his own hallucinations when his fever was so high it nearly killed him just weeks ago, remembers the terrifying visions from his dreams, a downpour of empathy raining down upon him.

"They are. But I am not. Courfeyrac lives. Combeferre lives. Feuilly lives. Marius and Gavroche live."

Grantaire opens his eyes again, blinking rapidly several times, hands lingering on Enjolras' wounds before moving to his chest, staying there for a moment while he feels Enjolras' heartbeat, then moves them both to his face, carefully taking hold as if Enjolras is a piece of fragile china.

"I won't break if you touch me," Enjolras says, mirroring Combeferre's tone. "No glass, just flesh and bone."

Grantaire holds his face a little firmer, thumbs running across his cheeks before moving to his forehead and picking up the little beads of sweat gathering there, feeling the heat beneath Enjolras' skin.

Grantaire freezes.

"Fever! Infection…it's back, it's…"

"R," Enjolras says, his uncommon use of the nickname drawing Grantaire's attention. "It's not infection. Yes, I have a small fever, but it is not like before, I swear to you. Combeferre says it is…stress and…trauma. My body has been through…a lot," Enjolras says haltingly, still struggling to admit even this weakness. "Do you not trust Combeferre's word? I know I do."

Grantaire's eyes widen again, gaze flitting frantically between Enjolras and Combeferre and back again.

"Grantaire," Combeferre interjects carefully. "It's…"

"You're on fire!" Grantaire shouts. "The drakon's set you on fire from the inside out. I knew it, I knew, they're clever beasts, they know better than mortals and gods alike. You cannot kill the fire with an arrow, Apollo, you cannot…"

He bolts up, making for the water pitcher on his nightstand, but Feuilly stops him in his tracks, taking hold of his arms and Combeferre moves to help. Enjolras' breath hitches in his chest and he cannot get air, he cannot think properly, the hot knot of anxiety in his stomach finally exploding and sending an uncontrollable flood of burning nerves through his system like volcanic lava. He swallows, breathing in and out sharply through his nose, focusing on Grantaire, focusing on everything occurring in front of him.

"We have to put it out!" Grantaire screams. "It's going to kill him!"

"Feuilly, if you would, please, there's a bottle of Laudanum sitting on my dresser fresh from the chemist," Combeferre says, carefully holding Grantaire's arms down as he and Feuilly place him on the bed. "The alcohol content in it should be enough to abate the symptoms."

"Enjolras please let Courfeyrac help you back to bed, all right? I need you to let him get you calm, and then get some food in you, no matter how small the amount." Comberre requests, a worried, torn expression gleaming in his eyes; he wants to help them both at once, but Grantaire's need is currently far more pressing, but Enjolras knows Combeferre sees the growing flush in his cheeks, the copious amount of sweat, the trembling of his hands, the barely suppressed alarm, and for Combeferre's sake, Enjolras holds it all back as best he can, heeding him as promised. "I'll check back in as soon as I get Grantaire settled and sleeping."

"Don't take him away!" Grantaire shouts. "Don't…please!"

"He's just going down the hall so I can help you," Combeferre says, taking the handkerchief from his pocket and wiping away the sweat running down Grantaire's face with the utmost care. "No one's taking him away, he just needs rest like you, I promise."

It takes every ounce of strength Enjolras possesses to walk out of the room and away from Grantaire, takes every ounce of trust he has in Combeferre, because he knows his friend is right, knows it as sure as he hears the thunk of the cane on the hardwood as he leaves, Courfeyrac bearing even more of his weight.

Courfeyrac whispers something into Marius' ear as they pass, and Marius pulls Gavroche carefully by the hand and away from Enjolras' room, immensely concerned looks marring both their faces.

Guilt seizes Enjolras in its vice grip, but he knows they should not see him this way, knows it best that the youngest of their group return a bit later when he's recovered from this, when he's calmer, when he can reassure them.

He cannot get Grantaire's terrified screams out of his head.

The barricade changed Grantaire, changed all of them, and Grantaire is trying to quit this because of those changes, because of that strength Enjolras always knew was somewhere within him, and this…Enjolras doesn't want this holding Grantaire back, not when he's tried so hard already, not now.

"Sit on the side of the bed there," Courfeyrac says lowering him gently onto the mattress. "And put your head between your knees and try and breathe deeply and slowly, okay? Joly taught me this once, and we can't go wrong with Joly's advice, right?"

Enjolras obeys, feeling Courfeyrac's wonderfully familiar hands on his back, Courfeyrac's forehead against his, willing his heart to slow, his breathing to even out, the shaking to cease.

"That's right," Courfeyrac says. "Just breathe with me, Enjolras. Just breathe. It will be okay, we will get Grantaire through this, we have lost much but we are together, and we will strive forward with our friends' memories forever in our hearts, every day. You will be yourself again, I promise you."

The words etch themselves across Enjolras' heart, his mind, his soul, in glowing, golden lettering, permanent in Courfeyrac's perfect script. He hears his own sure voice in his head:

_All will be harmony, concord, light, joy, and life…_

And then he hears Jehan's voice from his dream, hears it clear as he hears his own ragged breathing:

_Nothing can break you, not even this, not any of it…You are cracked, you are splintered, you feel as though you'll never in your life get put back together again. But you will, because your hope burns so deep inside you, Enjolras, so deep, that no matter how damaged, how hurt, how broken and shattered you feel, you will always find yourself again… You have to let our friends put you back together._

He holds tighter to Courfeyrac until finally, they breathe as one.


	26. Illuminating Conversations

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello all! Thank you so much again for your wonderful feedback on the last chapter, it is ever appreciated! Thank you to everyone reading! This chapter ended up being extra long, so I hope you enjoy! Oh, and random side-note, but I've gotten some messages from people finding me on tumblr and not knowing I was the same person writing this story until they found me, since my screen names aren't the same, so if you're on tumblr, I'm KCrabb88 over there.

Chapter 26: Illuminating Conversations

Enjolras hates admitting it, but he feels dreadful.

Absolutely, utterly dreadful.

Every part of his body aches, he feels so incredibly weak, and his wounds send rushes of pain through him at random intervals. Concerned for his still shallow breathing, Combeferre journeyed into Avignon himself this morning, and through some sort of explanation to a local doctor, retrieved a prescription for an emetic from the chemist, hoping to cleanse the last of the excess Laudanum and other toxins from Enjolras' body.

Enjolras had never expected to vomit so much in his life, nevermind in front of his friend, but Combeferre stood by the entire time, a calming, reassuring hand on his back as Enjolras' body shook from the effort. Enjolras didn't think it possible, but he feels closer to Combeferre than ever before, given all the vulnerable situations he's found himself in lately.

Enjolras surveys Combeferre now from where he lies, lax and completely spent against a mound of pillows as Combeferre puts a salve of camphor on his leg wound in the hopes of preventing any infection from returning. It stings, but Enjolras hasn't the energy to even twitch. Combeferre had brightened at receiving a parcel from his parents today containing his medical bag and a few things from the rooms they'd left abandoned. His parents had business in Paris, and at receiving correspondence from the landlady after she'd realized Combeferre and Enjolras had vacated the apartment, went and cleaned out the apartment themselves. They'd sent some of Enjolras' things as well, and for that he is grateful to them. Combeferre's parents don't always understand their son, but they are an unceasingly kind pair, and they'd also taken great care to check every nook and cranny of the apartment for republican materials lest they accidentally remain when the landlady rents out the apartment to someone else. Combeferre is certainly on Parisian watch lists, and Enjolras is, well…he's meant to be dead.

_You are dead, Enjolras. Do you hear me? Dead. As far as society knows, Rene Enjolras was shot and killed by my own hand in an escape attempt._

"There," Combeferre says, pulling the covers back up over Enjolras and pulling him from his remembrance, his warm, comforting voice washing away Javert's cold words. "That should do it." He looks up, eyes roving over Enjolras' face. "Do you feel dreadful?"

"I…" Enjolras begins, feeling the crushing depression that's become disturbingly familiar over the past few days sweep over him once more, his throat raw from regurgitating the little food and water he had in him.

"It's all right," Combeferre says, noting Enjolras' expression. "I think I already know the answer to that. But your breathing is returning to normal now, and your fever, though not vanished, is depleted, so I think the emetic, unpleasant as it was, did its job, though I am sorry to put you through it. I don't suppose you're hungry?"

"Not in the slightest, actually," Enjolras admits. "My stomach revolts at the mere mention of anything edible, at the moment. And I imagine it would rather hurt to swallow."

"That's not surprising, but we should get something in you tomorrow morning, you'll feel better then, I expect. Though we do need to keep you hydrated through the night, so do keep drinking that water on your bedside table," Combeferre says, sitting on the edge of the bed. "And I think enough time will have passed so that I can start giving you very controlled doses of Laudanum again, I know your shoulder and your leg must pain you a great deal."

"I don't think I'll be wanting the Laudanum," Enjolras says quickly, eyes leaving Combeferre's face and flitting to the coverlet, hands fisting into the soft material.

_His legs giving out from under him, unstable as a baby deer's._

_His conscious mind melting away under the power of the drugs, sending the world spinning. _

_Hazy. _

_Unfocused._

_Javert's hands forcing his mouth open as he pins him down upon the cold, filthy cell floor._

_The doctor pouring bitter Laudanum down his throat, choking him, burning him, stealing his control over his own body._

_Javert repeating the action the next morning, his powerful hands feeling as if they might crush the bones of Enjolras' face._

_Hurt._

_Helpless._

_Weak._

He's never felt so helpless, and he doesn't care to relive that particular sensation.

Combeferre bites his lip, conflicted. He doesn't like this idea, that much is clear, but anxiety surrounds Enjolras, real and palpable, and Combeferre doesn't want to push him.

"I cannot and will not force you to take it," Combeferre says, slow and deliberate with his words. "Unless you become delirious as you did the night your fever spiked so high, there is no medical reason for it. But there is little else for the pain other than simple alcohol, Enjolras, nor to help you sleep. And I will not lie: you are going to be in pain for a time. And you will be stuck in bed far more often without the relief."

"I know, Combeferre, but I cannot," Enjolras replies, looking back up again. "I…at least I cannot right now. I trust you, you have to know that, but if I must stay in bed, so be it. I'd rather that than feel…so helpless. To lose all control like that again, my mind and body betraying me all at once…I do not wish to feel like that."

"I know," Combeferre answers, tucking a strand of loose blonde hair back behind Enjolras' ear, fingers lingering on Enjolras' cheek for a moment as if Combeferre doesn't quite believe he's real. "We shall agree to revisit the subject, all right?"

Enjolras nods, squeezing Combeferre's hand in thanks.

"How's your hand?" Combeferre asks by way of changing the subject. "I put some of the salve on that cut just to be sure, though your shoulder doesn't seem to need it, it's actually healing well now."

"The cut smarts a bit, but my leg rather overwhelms everything else," Enjolras says, looking down at the fresh bandage on his hand, wrapped over the cut that will surely leave a scar, an ever present reminder. "How is Grantaire? Is he still sleeping?"

"He woke briefly when I checked on him an hour ago," Combeferre says, a tinge of worry edging into his voice. "The hallucinations seem to have stopped, thankfully. But he's anxious, he's ill, he's in pain. But he should be just fine, given time. Feuilly was sitting at Grantaire's bedside when I went in, reading yet another book from M. Gillenormand's extensive library, and I spied a note he'd written himself that reminded him to speak to you about something he'd read when you were feeling up to it."

Enjolras smiles at that: his admiration for Feuilly glows like the sun breaking through the thunderstorm in his heart, casting the skies a little less grey.

"I wasn't aware alcohol withdrawal could cause such violent hallucinations," Enjolras says after a pause, recalling Grantaire's terror, recalling how much he wanted to relieve the glimmering fear shining in his friend's eyes, fear so centered on him, on his well-being, his recovery.

In those frantic, fearful moments he realized with startling clarity just how much Grantaire reveres him. He's always known that Grantaire is utterly loyal to him, loves him, but this…he's not sure he ever fully comprehended it at this level before, and though he cannot yet express it, this terrifies him on Grantaire's behalf. Because he is a fallible man, a human being capable of error; and yet Grantaire knows this, has always been perfectly willing to challenge him, to point out his flaws, and yet Grantaire somehow still puts him on a pedestal that Grantaire himself thinks he can never reach. It's as if all the life in Grantaire is tied to Enjolras, to their friends, and not at all in himself, and Enjolras doesn't want that for his friend, wouldn't want that for anyone.

But as of yet, he's not sure how to mend this. A pang of grief steals his breath as he thinks of Joly and Bossuet, who were always the most talented with Grantaire when he seemed lowest, who simply possessed an innate sense of handling and helping him during his most severe bouts of melancholy and self-destruction. Enjolras wants to reach out his hand to Grantaire and pull him up, show him he believes them equals, man to man, but he is not certain Grantaire will accept the gesture. Enjolras understands how cynicism comes about, has seen enough world weariness in the people they fight for to fathom that. He does not profess an understanding of people not fighting back, but then he has not been in their situation, and if they cannot fight, he will fight for them. He struggles to contemplate a world in which he isn't fighting that battle, and wonders how Grantaire can stand the lack of purpose he surrounds himself with, wonders if it is key to the drinking. But Grantaire, Grantaire placed himself in the midst of a group of fervent idealists, warriors for a better world, and yet still claimed lack of belief while simultaneously proclaiming belief in friendship, ultimate belief in Enjolras himself, and it's a paradox Enjolras cannot yet comprehend, though he wishes to do so now more than ever.

"It does happen," Combeferre says. "Though I…I do think the situation was made worse by the traumas we have all experienced. And nearly losing you twice since the barricade itself, given the nature of his hallucinations…it has clearly affected Grantaire."

Enjolras looks away, feeling a wetness gather around his eyes despite himself, his heart pounding again, and he cannot swallow it as he usually does, cannot force it back, cannot fight it and he doesn't know _why_.

He feels Combeferre's hand gently take his chin, tilting it up toward his gaze, hazel eyes filled with deep pools of fluid empathy.

"You have showcased your strength these past weeks perhaps more than ever before, Enjolras," Combeferre says, voice feather-light and filled with warm comfort. "Do not even dare think otherwise. You are not yourself right now, and if you were, I'd be more concerned than I already am. None of us are our normal selves at the moment, because how on earth could we be? You are not to blame yourself for Grantaire's condition; certainly Grantaire is the last person who would blame you. And it will lead to a good thing, this terrible process. Letting him know how much this means to all of us, to you, would mean a great deal to him, I suspect."

_Jehan came to me in a dream_, Enjolras wants to say. _He told me to let all of you put me back together._

But he cannot utter the words just yet, and instead takes both of Combeferre's hands in his own, pressing his lips to the permanently cool skin.

"Do you want me to sleep here tonight?" Combeferre offers.

_Yes._

"You have slept in here with me for two nights in a row," Enjolras says. "You should sleep in your own bed for at least one night. You've been running yourself ragged between Grantaire and myself for two days, you deserve a bed all to yourself."

"I am a wretched cover thief," Combeferre says with a chuckle, but he still looks worried. "I could send for Courfeyrac? He went downstairs to speak with Marius and Cosette while I tended to you, but…"

"Don't bother him," Enjolras says. "He scarcely slept last night with the three of us piled in this bed; I think he was having another nightmare, so let him relax. I want him to relax."

"You may find him here after you've fallen asleep anyhow," Combeferre says, a smile alighting on his lips. "He's loathe to leave you alone. We all are."

It's quiet between them for a moment, but Enjolras feels Combeferre's intent gaze on him, and then as if Courfeyrac's soul temporarily possesses him, Combeferre leans forward and folds Enjolras into a fierce embrace, careful with his injuries, emotion radiating off him in waves.

Enjolras thinks he could stay in this embrace forever, safe, cocooned in his friend's arms like this.

But he knows he cannot.

Enjolras doesn't speak, allowing Combeferre the moment he needs as Combeferre has done so many times with him over the past few weeks, has always done.

"I was beside myself when… _he_ dragged you out in manacles like that," Combeferre says, still refusing to say Javert's name, a rare edge of anger sharpening the sadness in his tone. "I could scarcely stand the thought that you wouldn't return, of losing you. I wanted to keep my promise to you _and_ save you… if it hadn't been for Marius and Courfeyrac…then I saw the knife to your neck…"

Combeferre's usual steady, solid voice breaks off, and Enjolras pulls back, hands coming down to rest firmly on Combeferre's neck, his friend's watery gaze meeting his own.

"I am _here_, Combeferre," Enjolras says with a whisper of his usual firmness. "I am here and I'm not going anywhere. And you, you did everything right, you protected them. I should not have asked you to let me go, should not have burdened you with that. I only knew I had to get Javert away from all of you, had to accept…I…I am not myself, and I apologize…"

"Don't you dare apologize, Enjolras," Combeferre reprimands, cutting him off, hands coming to rest on Enjolras' shoulders. "You…_we_ will figure this out. All our lives, your life, all of it."

Enjolras rests his head against Combeferre's, but he doesn't tell him he fears his place in the world, fears that by flouting his capture and his punishment, flouting his death, he's done something terribly wrong. He doesn't want to die, certainly, he never has; he was willing to, and that is a significant difference, but he cannot help but wonder if he was _meant_ to die…but he knows Combeferre would only reassure him, would only say that despite his warlike nature, there would always be a place in the new republic for someone who risked his life and limb to build the new world, because even if it didn't require barricades, there would always be battles to win, improvements to make. He would say that he needn't condemn himself now for surviving the barricade, for all of the acts committed within its confines; his severity is a strength which allows him to do what he must, but he is far more than that.

Combeferre's said the same many times in Enjolras' darkest moments, and Enjolras listened, treaded "the broad paths of progress" as Combeferre put it. He learned he could adjust to whatever happened, but now...as a fugitive who's meant to be dead, Enjolras has yet to figure out how to continue his work, for France, in memory of his friends, how to react to this situation, what to do, and he's _always_ known how to proceed, it seems, as if he's walked down revolutionary paths before in some other life, as bizarre as the idea might sound voiced out loud.

"Your schooling," Enjolras says, suddenly desperate to talk with Combeferre about this. "You finished your externship at Necker, and you had but your final exam to complete to become fully certified, I want you to finish that. I know you cannot go back to Paris, but…"

"My parents said they spoke to the university," Combeferre says. "Told them I'd fallen ill, and the air in Paris had put me in bad humors, and it is possible I can get my records transferred from Paris to Aix-Marseille University and take my exam there, as they felt I was a model student. It will take some time, but…"

"You must do it," Enjolras says, feeling almost manic now. He might not be able to lead a normal life, a life where he is not constantly looking over his shoulder, inventing a name and a story and a life, but it need not be so for his friends. "You are an excellent doctor, you could find a practice here in Avignon, I'm sure any of them would be proud to have you. And Courfeyrac can find a law firm that takes on the cases of the poor like he's always wanted, and Marius can join him perhaps, after he settles with Cosette, and Feuilly and Grantaire they can…"

"Enjolras, Enjolras, it's all right," Combeferre replies, both his hands covering Enjolras'. "I will make certain to send for my records as soon as you are a bit better."

"You do not have to wait for that," Enjolras argues, passionate urgency filling him to the brim and bursting over the edge. "I am not…"

"Do not finish that statement," Combeferre says. "Right now, nothing is more important than all of us, than your health, than Grantaire's health."

"But the summer sessions are over at the end of July, and it is the end of June," Enjolras persists. "You would have to wait until the winter session, that is…"

"We will see how it progresses," Combeferre says, calm and resolute. "I can always write my director at Necker and see if he can pull any strings with the university in Marseille so that I can take the exam outside of term. If not, I can take it during the winter session and perhaps work at a practice in the meantime. When you are better, mind."

Enjolras nods, holding tight to Combeferre's hands, the feeling steadying his racing mind.

"If Joly could see me now, he'd probably say my humors were out of balance," Enjolras answers, feeling a melancholy smile stretch unnaturally across his lips. "Would you agree?"

"I think you have been through a great deal of trauma," Combeferre answers, even and sincere. "And that has an effect on anyone's emotional and mental health. It requires _time_. And Joly would agree with me."

"No bloodletting, then?" Enjolras asks apprehensively, fingering the just healed scar in the crook of his elbow.

"Hmmm, not unless your fever persists for several more days or goes up," Combeferre says, furrowing his brow. "Its efficacy is highly debated these days, but it is often used as a last resort. But hopefully we will not have to do it again."

A familiar rap on the door alerts them to someone's presence outside, and Courfeyrac enters, Gavroche just behind him.

"I found this one lingering outside your door, Enjolras," Courfeyrac says, oddly tentative and clearly searching for Enjolras' permission. "I thought he might like to say hello?"

"Of course," Enjolras says, gesturing at the two of them. "Come sit up here, if you like, Gavroche?"

The boy obliges, coming up to sit between Enjolras and Combeferre on the bed, while Courfeyrac takes the chair, observing them with a half-smile; it's small, but Enjolras is pleased to see even a sliver of the usual starlight grin.

"You have to stay in bed again?" Gavroche asks, peering first at Enjolras, then Combeferre as if suspicious that Combeferre is being overly worrisome. "And Grantaire, too?"

"For a few days at least," Enjolras replies, glancing over at Combeferre before looking back at Gavroche. "If you like, you can keep me company sometimes. And Grantaire must rest too; he's a bit under the weather."

"He's trying to quit the drink?"

"Yes," Enjolras says, ever amazed at Gavroche's perception, but knowing that he's certainly far more mature in some ways than a normal ten-year old could possibly be, has seen things he never should have, borne witness to all the evils of the society and the government they so desired to dismantle and start anew.

Gavroche nods, but looks unsure. "Dunno what I could do to entertain ya. Can't read to you like I see Feuilly and Cosette or Marius doin' all the time. Don't know as many puns as Courfeyrac to make you laugh..."

Enjolras feels his stomach sink at Gavroche's words, but it's a thought confirmed. He looks closely at Gavroche, seeing the shadows shading his light blue eyes, his downcast expression that's stained with an odd sort of anger, a frustration, an embarrassment he doesn't like admitting. Enjolras longs for the sarcastic, mischievous smile with just a dash of a smirk he knows so well. He recalls the barricade, recalls Gavroche's argument for a rifle, heartily offended when it was decided he would be given if there were enough for all the men, annoyed that all of them kept trying to send him away from the barricade.

"_Gamin!"_

"_Smooth-face!"_

"Your company is enough, Master Gavroche," Enjolras says, teasing lightly, hoping to win a smile.

He does, albeit a tiny one, but it's enough for the moment.

"I'm sure one of us could teach you to read and write Gavroche," Combeferre says, practically reading Enjolras' mind. "Once things settle down. Would you like that?"

"Really?" Gavroche asks, smile widening now. He looks from Combeferre to Courfeyrac to Enjolras. "Would _you_ teach me, Enjolras? I've always wanted to learn so I can be more independent, ya know. Eponine knew how to read and write, but I didn't see 'er enough to learn from her, and I dunno if she knew how to teach it besides, but she was pretty good at it. Bahorel was gonna teach me, he said, but…"

He trails off, smile faltering, memories of Bahorel playing across his eyes in vivid, sharpened color. The child had looked up to Bahorel, respected and admired his irreverence and his love of a good brawl. Gavroche had seen Bahorel bayoneted in the chest, they'd all seen it; life-loving, laughing, defiant Bahorel, who lived every single minute of his life to its fullest extent suddenly dead on the ground.

"I will teach you, Gavroche," Enjolras agrees. "Once…once I am well enough."

Gavroche smiles fully now, a light returning to his eyes.

Courfeyrac, noticing that Enjolras tires, tugs on Gavroche's sleeve.

"All right Gav, let's allow Enjolras some sleep, shall we? I think I saw a few of the dessert pastries left out from earlier, if you'd like to help me sneak some from the kitchen."

Gavroche nearly topples over in his enthusiasm, but smiles one last time at Enjolras before dashing out the door in front of Courfeyrac, who pauses at Enjolras' side.

"If you need me in the night," he says, serious now. "Do not hesitate. I'm just on the other side of the wall, do feel free to knock on it with your cane if you find you cannot get up and need company, all right?"

"Yes," Enjolras says, that familiar feeling of security overcoming him as Courfeyrac kisses the top of his head. "I will."

Courfeyrac grasps Combeferre's arm before exiting, following in Gavroche's wake.

"I suppose I should let you rest," Combeferre says after a moment. "Are you certain you'll be okay on your own?"

"Yes," Enjolras repeats, even if he is not certain it's the truth. "Get some proper rest."

"You as well," Combeferre insists. "And try and finish that glass of water first; it might make you feel nauseated, but it will pass."

He squeezes Enjolras' hand one last time before going, lingering in the doorway for longer than necessary before closing the it behind him.

* * *

Enjolras cannot sleep.

It's been a solid two hours since Combeferre and Courfeyrac left him to sleep, and though he closes his eyes, though he sinks deep down into the goose-feather pillows, the covers snug around body, blissful repose does not come.

He'd fallen into sweat-soaked, wretched slumber for an entire twenty minutes, his abstract, smoky nightmares filled with snatches of Grantaire writhing on the floor in utter agony, Enjolras' name a cry escaping his lips, filled with darkness seeping into Enjolras' body and pulling out balls of glowing light, swallowing them up into the black, Grantaire's screams echoing in his ears without pause, mixed with Combeferre's shouts of despair, Courfeyrac's unrestrained sobs, Feuilly's cries of anger, Marius' calls for help against some unseen, vicious enemy as he reaches for Cosette, who cannot get to him. Jehan, Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet surrounded them all, reached out for them, but were blocked by a wall of shadowy clouds, all the light obscured behind them.

He sits up, knowing that no matter how often he closes his eyes he'll only be greeted with persistent wakefulness or with nightmares thieving away any decent rest. He's lost his hair tie somewhere among the pillows, so he runs a hand through his loose, damp hair, sweeping the sweaty tendrils from his face.

He needs to see Grantaire, needs to see him to make sure he's still breathing, still fighting. He knows it's not rational, he knows Combeferre told him Grantaire was improving, would recover, but he needs to see him nevertheless. He reaches for the cane resting in-between his bed and the nightstand, gripping it tightly as he pushes himself up; Combeferre taught him to use the cane on the opposite side of his injured leg so his good one might bear most of the weight, but in turn this sends a punch of pain through his shoulder and his cut hand, but he grits his teeth against it, successfully getting up from the bed.

Grantaire's room is two doors down diagonally across the hall across from own, not far at all, but to Enjolras it might as well be the six-hundred mile distance from Avignon to Paris. Before the prison debacle his strength had slowly begun to return, though he was only able to walk short distances with the cane. Now, weak once more and without the numbing of Laudanum he trembles with fatigue before he even reaches his own door.

_You can do it_, he tells himself. _One foot in front of the other._

He leans on various pieces of furniture as he exits the room, letting the solid wood take his weight, but once he enters the hall it's just the cane, and he feels knives stab him repeatedly in the leg as he walks. Sweat beads at his forehead as he goes, and by the time he reaches the door to Grantaire's room it runs down his face in salty rivulets and he's all but dragging his leg behind him, half-hopping on his good foot.

The door to Grantaire's room stands cracked open, so he pushes it forward quietly as he can before collapsing into the vacated chair by the bed, instantly stretching his leg out and resting it on the sideboard, pain pulsing through him in shocks of heated anguish. He leans over, head resting against his knee, hands clenching at his bad leg and drawing shallow, gulping breaths. He closes his eyes for a moment, hearing a cough, hearing the bedcovers rustle.

"Enjolras?" Grantaire's scratchy, sleep drenched voice asks. "Is that…what are you doing in here?"

Enjolras breathes out through clenched teeth, unable to verbalize just yet; he'd hoped he wouldn't wake Grantaire, and if he did he'd hoped to be a reassuring presence, but the pain has other plans, it seems.

"Here," Grantaire says, sitting up. Enjolras sees his hands still tremble and twitch, and he's a great deal paler than normal. "Let me help you up here with me so you can stretch out."

"No," Enjolras argues. "You are ill, you shouldn't."

"Yes," Grantaire says dryly, wrapping a strong arm around Enjolras's waist and helping him from the chair. "But I am also mobile. Don't be stubborn; it is not a virtue in this case."

Between Enjolras' injuries and Grantaire's shaking hands it's awkwardly done, but soon enough both of them are stretched out on the roomy bed.

"Why are you…" Grantaire stops, a wince of pain marring his bewildered words. "Why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep," Enjolras says, looking over at him, swallowing anything in him that will prevent him from being completely honest and open in this moment as is continually the problem between the two of them aside from a few notable instances. They've made such progress, and he will not harm that now. "I just…I just wanted to see you for myself. To make sure with my own eyes that you were all right. Of course, I know 'all right' isn't the word to describe you right now, but just to make…"

"Enjolras," Grantaire says, putting up a hand to silence him. "I understand the meaning. But you could have hurt yourself."

"I am in one piece," Enjolras replies. "No harm done, just pain."

"Pain _is_ harm," Grantaire says with emphasis, losing his feigned calm with disconcerting speed. "You are hurt enough, you cannot take anymore. You almost died twice already, you cannot…your body cannot…"

Enjolras hears the rapid-fire sound of Grantaire's words, hears Grantaire's breath hitching in his chest, sees his pulse beat frantically against the skin of his neck at the mere idea that Enjolras injured himself further.

"Shhh," Enjolras says, placing a hesitant hand on Grantaire's cheek, which is as sweaty as his own. "Quiet now. Go back to sleep, Grantaire. Just sleep. Rest will help you win this battle, you're doing so well."

Grantaire gapes at him with wide eyes as if he doesn't quite believe Enjolras is actually there, as if he thinks he doesn't deserve such words, and there's an emotional vulnerability shining in those dark green eyes Enjolras has never witnessed before. There are no defenses in the form of a sarcastic comment, no verbal, defiant challenge spoken in nearly the same breath as a raw, unchecked emotion. There are no lengthy discourses littered with the classic and literary references of a well-read man, his true thoughts and feelings buried somewhere among the sea of names and quotes stringing them together. The irritating sensation of Grantaire metaphorically pulling him in and then pushing him back with the same hand, in the same moment, isn't present**.**

Perhaps Grantaire is vulnerable because he is ill, because he does not have the bottle to hide behind, but it matters not, in the moment, why Grantaire is vulnerable or why Enjolras is vulnerable. Rather it only matters that it's happening at the same time.

"Apollo," Grantaire whispers.

"No," Enjolras says, stern but still kind. "Just Enjolras. I'm no god, only a mortal as human as you are."

Grantaire doesn't respond, but instead turns on his side, burying his face in Enjolras' shoulder. Enjolras knows that in his normal state of mind Grantaire would never do this, but he accepts the touch, taking one hand and entwining it within Grantaire's forest of wild black curls, thumb moving back and forth across his scalp in hopes of easing the headache Combeferre says will plague Grantaire for several days. He'd come across Joly doing the same to Grantaire on the morning of a particularly nasty hangover, and for some reason the sight imprinted on his mind: Joly's agile doctor's hands massaging through Grantaire's untamed locks while Bossuet placed food in front of his nose, Bahorel's mumbling that none of his friends ever tried massaging _his_ hangover headaches away, and Joly's good-natured reply that Bahorel would likely punch anyone who tried, aside perhaps, from Prouvaire, who could tease Bahorel to his heart's content without getting smacked in the arm, for some reason.

Enjolras and Grantaire have never been so tactile with each other, but somehow now it seems only natural.

"Why are you _here_?" Grantaire asks, hoarse voice muffled against Enjolras' shirt. "Do not be like me, Enjolras, do not. Is that why you're here? To tell me that you have given up? That the darkness I saw in the horrific recesses of my mind has really overcome you?"

"No," Enjolras answers. "The recesses of your mind, those hallucinations, they are not reality. You have spent many an hour at my bedside while I have been ill, and I wish to return the favor. You are my friend, Grantaire, a friend undergoing a hardship I have long wished to see you overcome. It reassures and comforts me to be by your side, and I'd hoped to bolster your efforts."

Grantaire does not respond, is perhaps afraid to do so; he takes Enjolras' injured hand in his own, entwining their fingers and folding their hands out to rest together over Enjolras' heart. His worries eased ever so slightly by seeing that Grantaire, while still ill, improves, Enjolras feels his eyes flutter closed with emotional and physical exhaustion, sleep finally claiming him for its own.

* * *

Two open doors catch Valjean's eye on one of his none too rare nightly walks around this sprawling house, driven by his occasional bouts of insomnia.

Reaching Enjolras' door he peers around it, fearing he's taken a turn in the night and Combeferre or perhaps Courfeyrac are tending to him. What he sees stills his heart briefly: the room is empty. The covers of the bed are thrown back, tussled, indicating a night of tossing, and his cane is gone.

Valjean is not one for panic, and crosses the hallway immediately to check Grantaire has not similarly disappeared in the night. He has not: he is sprawled, as expected in bed, and Valjean breathes a sigh of relief because there next to him, fast asleep, blond hair fanned across both pillows, is Enjolras. Their hands are clasped together across Enjolras' chest, both pale and flushed with fevers, but while Grantaire looks content and more at rest than he has for days, Enjolras' face is mask of apprehension and turmoil even in sleep.

But at least he's sleeping.

Valjean smiles, making to close the door when he sees Enjolras' stormy blue eyes pop open as though he senses someone's presence. Enjolras looks over at Grantaire then back at Valjean, who comes over as quietly as possible to the side of the bed.

"I did not expect to find you out of your own bed," Valjean whispers. "I didn't expect you'd be able to leave your own bed unassisted, actually."

"I couldn't sleep," Enjolras replies with a wan smile, voice just as soft for fear of waking Grantaire. "And I…I was worried about Grantaire. I just…needed to see him for myself, and I suppose I fell asleep here. Though I don't think I could fall asleep again at the moment, and I don't know if possess the energy to make my way back to my own room."

"Here," Valjean says, offering his arm. "Let me help you. Do you want to go back to you room?"

"I…" Enjolras says, looking from Valjean to Grantaire and back again. "No, not really."

"We'll go to the room I've claimed for my study, if that sounds all right," Valjean says, gaging the boy's reaction. He looks as if he needs to talk, and Valjean is anxious to help him, anxious to clear away the dark cobwebs of doubt spinning themselves across Enjolras' eyes in intricate patterns.

"Yes," Enjolras replies. "Yes, that sounds fine." Enjolras smiles faintly. "You always seem to be my rescuer, sir." He says as he uses both hands to shift his injured leg and set both feet on the floor.

Valjean watches Enjolras' eyes flit back to Grantaire once more, an uncertainty building in his eyes that Valjean's never seen there before. From what he's gathered, Enjolras has a firm, direct, sure nature, and seeing him hesitate, seeing him tussle with his own mind like this sits like stone in the center of Valjean's stomach.

"Grantaire will recover," Valjean says, putting a reassuring hand on Enjolras' shoulder. "He's already far improved from just two nights ago, and he has friends like all of you, has an excellent medic in Combeferre."

Enjolras nods, placing a feather-light kiss on Grantaire's forehead before turning back toward Valjean, who wraps an arm around the younger man's waist as Enjolras takes his cane. With Valjean bearing a great deal of his weight, the trek down the hall, though still painful, is easier this time. Once they reach the study Valjean deposits Enjolras carefully into the leather armchair, helping him prop his leg up on the ottoman before sitting down in the chair next to him.

"I could probably scrounge up some tea if you like," Valjean says, noting Enjolras' drawn complexion. "Touissant knows my habits well enough to leave a pot out for me to heat up at night."

Enjolras places a hand over his stomach, shaking his head. "Combeferre gave me an emetic earlier, and I'm not sure I can tolerate much at the moment, though if there's any water I'd be glad to take that. He told me to stay hydrated."

"So he told me," Valjean says, turning and reaching for the pitcher and the glass Madame Bellard has taken to leaving permanently on the desk and filling it up for Enjolras. "How are you feeling?"

Enjolras accepts the glass, taking a healthy sip while pondering his answer.

"Honestly, I rather feel like I've been run over by a carriage," he says, looking back up at Valjean. "Twice." He stops, surveying Valjean again, and even though Enjolras is weary, ill, and not entirely himself, Valjean feels the intensity of the young man's gaze filling him with the sensation of bright flames filling him up to the brim. In fact, it is a rather pleasant feeling; Enjolras does not scorch the world with his fire, but instead gives light, a light brightening and shooting through the darkness, a light so bright, so blinding, that some people are unfortunately not yet prepared to look upon it.

"I cannot…" Enjolras continued. "I have not really had the opportunity to thank you properly for everything you've done these past few weeks. And you…you risked your very life, your freedom coming to get me back from Javert. Had it not been for you, I'd be nearly to Paris now, likely…likely facing my death."

Enjolras' eyes leave Valjean's face and fall to the floor, searching for answers among the lush carpet, memories clearing barraging his mind, guilt casting shadows on his face that looks as if it is the painting of an archangel coming to life: a warring archangel who has been through battle, an archangel with a bruise on his face, fever-red cheeks, and paler than usual skin, but an archangel nonetheless. Enjolras winces noticeably again.

"You are not taking the Laudanum?" Valjean guesses.

"Combeferre told you?" Enjolras replies though there is no accusation in his voice.

"A guess."

"No. I…it robs me of…my senses, my control and I…I cannot…"

"I understand that, but if dosed properly," Valjeans replies, concerned by the stutter and what it implies.

"I have never liked it." Enjolras says, shifting as pain radiates up to his hip and sits there, aching. "I have never liked the sensation it gives. It is why I drink alcohol only sparingly, usually just wine…" He stops abruptly, pressing his hand to his mouth, gathering himself.

"Control?" Valjean questions, detecting a desperate doubt coursing through Enjolras desperate his attempts to reign in his emotion.

Enjolras looks up sharply, eyes flicking back and forth, reading Valjean's face, his meaning, his intent. Even now, as hurt and unsure as Enjolras is, his gaze is intense, illuminating, and Valjean feels as though his soul is laid bare for the reading beneath it.

Something akin to resolution crosses Enjolras face, along with the ever present pain and Valjean senses this is about more than just Laudanum.

"I have always had a temper, been passionate," Enjolras begins, one hand playing about his mouth, the other pressed to his leg. "I struggled as a child to control it, boarding school…well…" he makes a gesture with his hand, possibly wrenching himself from a memory. "I had thought, in later years I had learned some measure of control, to…channel my energy into the cause, to bridle my passion and intensity and feeling into a…"

"Force to be reckoned with?" Valjean supplies, a sudden image of Enjolras atop the barricade, bellowing orders, sharply contrasted against the soft dismissal of those with families.

Enjolras smiles sardonically, "Something like that. The Laudanum…I have never…"

"Take your time," Valjean says, ever patient.

"Thank you," Enjolras says, and stares into the water glass for a long moment. "I lost control." He whispers at last. "In the jail. I was so…angry. There was a woman, she'd been stabbed and…the blood…I couldn't…I couldn't do anything, and he, Javert, wouldn't send for a doctor." He puts the glass down and takes a steadying breath before meeting Valjean's eyes. "She died in my arms, I could do nothing for this poor woman who had already experienced much hardship." A shadow of the fury wells up, displacing the pain momentarily. "I lost control," he says again. "I couldn't stop it, I didn't _want_ to stop it. I wanted to _hurt_ him, to make him feel even an _ounce_ of what Isabelle…" his voice goes faint, cracks, and he stops again.

"That was why he drugged me." Enjolras says coldly. "He was afraid. Of me, what I would do, could do. _I_ was afraid of myself. I knew I was capable of feeling such fury, but I did not know I was incapable of controlling it. I did not know I was capable of doing…the things I did. I knew the course my actions would lead to, the revolution, the barricade, all of it. I knew hard decisions would be asked of me…that I would have to do things of which I do not approve. I was prepared for that. I made those decisions. But now…I question it. All of it. My right to choose for every man behind that barricade. The decisions I chose to make. And I cannot…absolve myself of those crimes. I do not question the need for violent revolutions, I abhor the fact that they must exist, but in the current world, it is the only way. I only question my decisions, my leadership."

"Enjolras," Valjean says after a moment. "I see the guilt in your face. You have done nothing wrong by evading capture, evading death. It is as I said just the other day; I would see you live to keep fighting."

"I _am_ guilty." Enjolras replies, eyes harsh, voice freezing over with self-judgment. "I killed LeCabuc, I killed the artillery sargeant and countless more men in the heat of battle. I might as well have signed my friends' death warrants, and that of every man who stood and fell beside me. I just..." Enjolras tries, trying to control a voice that shakes with bare emotion. "Some of my closest friends are dead, countless comrades are dead, great numbers of my brothers in arms who fought across Paris are dead, other leaders like myself are dead, in prison, or sentenced to die, and here I am still living. Here I am still living after I dealt out justice within the confines of the barricade to keep order. I…"

"I was there, Enjolras," Valjean says evenly. "You gave the men the choice to leave. They made their own choice. Your friends made their own choices, and you know that in your heart. They and all the men who followed you chose you as their leader for a reason. Your comrades, your brothers in arms, and _especially_ your friends," Valjean says, putting a finger under Enjolras' chin and tipping his face up. "They would _want_ you to live. I have seen your leadership, Enjolras. I have seen you make sacrifices, make decisions that pain you, but that you know you must make. I saw you send men away from the barricade so their families might not be without them. Yes you are willing to offer the protest of corpses when necessary, you are willing to kill to keep order in the barricade, to save it, when there is no other way, but you are also very adamant that people must live to continue the cause. Do you not think that includes you?"

"I want it to," Enjolras admits, holding Valjean's gaze now. "I have no wish to die, though I was willing to, I only fear I was not meant to live, I…I do not know how to live as a fugitive and still fight for this cause, but that is everything I desire. I do not know how to cope with this trauma and this anxiety and this gaping hole in my heart while still remaining myself, being strong for my friends, I don't…And if Grantaire is right? If things never change, if humanity is incapable of change? I spun them a web of a beautiful future in pretty, poetic words that will never come to pass and they followed me blindly, I don't want them to have died in vain…I can't…"

At seeing Enjolras' distress, at seeing him war with his emotions to remain strong, a rush of affection overcomes Valjean's heart, and he gets up, kneeling in front of Enjolras, resting a hand on his good knee, the other on his good shoulder.

"You don't believe that," Valjean says firmly "Whatever doubts you are having, they are the result of trauma, and drugs, illness and injury. You could no more believe in Grantaire's cynical view of humanity than you could have taken your friends' lives yourself. Most of the time I do not think Grantaire believes in that view himself, if his friendship with you is any indication, he only fears the hurt believing sometimes causes. This hurt you're feeling right now. Do not discredit their sacrifice by putting stock into these momentary flights of doubt. They are normal, and they are natural, if foreign to you, the optimist I know you are."

Enjolras looks at him, eyes red from holding back his tears, and then drops his head into his hands.

"It is a different circumstance, but I was once in your place," Valjean tells him, memories swirling through his mind in varying shades of clarity. You might not believe it now. But you will. You committed crimes, yes. As have I."

_What spirit comes to move my life? Is there another way to go? I am reaching, but I fall, and the night is closing in…_

_Petit Gervais. _

_Stealing the silver, the hatred whirling in his heart, broken through by Bishop Myriel._

"It is hardly the same, monsieur." Enjolras says bitterly. "You…you stole because your family was starving, and then all subsequent occurrences of crime occurred because you were angry at the injustice of your prison sentence, a place where you were hardly treated as a human, but you changed Valjean, changed at the kindness of one man."

"Ah," Valjean says, holding up a finger. "And was the barricade you built, the barricades built all over Paris, your revolution, your cause, your work, your friends' work, was that not all in effort to make a better world for people that grew up in my situation? So that all might have food and shelter and a fair justice system? That everyone might have a voice?"

Enjolras nods, pressing his lips tightly together to hide the trembling of his jaw.

"You dealt out justice on the barricade and you say you cannot justify it? It seems untenable, here in this peaceful and luxurious house to allow yourself that reprieve?"

Another nod.

"And did you have any other choice?"

"Combeferre did not stop me from killing LeCabuc, knew we could not have someone believing it was all right to simply shoot citizens who did not assist us, but he pleaded with me not to shoot the artillery sergeant. He asked me to yield…"

"Combeferre is a gentle soul and not a warrior; he turned himself inside out to fight at that barricade because he knew there was no other way, knew you were right in that, but it is not his natural state, fighting, so that was his sacrifice. But you cannot hand the world to progress without first fighting, not yet, and he knows that, so he fought willingly with you. You revere him as much you do all of your friends, but he could not have done what you did, though he supports you always, even if he disagrees. That is why, I suspect, you are the chief, and he is your guide. But answer me this, do you think you had any other choice, would Feuilly have thought any other choice?"

"He'd have found another…" Enjolras begins.

"Would he?" Valjean presses, his fingers digging into Enjolras' knee.

Enjolras shakes his head, a miniscule movement.

"I'd be almost to Paris by now, if you hadn't…rescued me."

"You think I shouldn't have done?"

Enjolras shakes his head again. "I don't know." He murmurs, almost inaudible. "I cannot help but believe that I should be on that coach, to face the justice I so readily dealt and believe in."

"The justice of our corrupt government? Enjolras, that is not what you believe in. The barricade failed. There is work to be done yet. If you were meant to face trial, and likely execution, now my rescue, as you say, would have failed. True justice and damnation is reserved for the Lord. Your place is to continue this fight. There is no need to damn yourself, my boy, the world needs you and more young men like your friends. Your friends need you."

Enjolras closes his eyes, pained by the thought of their failed revolution.

"Of all the possibilities I imagined following the barricades, this wasn't one. I was foolish, I planned and thought everything through but this...And now I'm a fugitive."

"You are not foolish and you can still fight. There will be a way, I know it. And I know, I know you feel trapped in darkness right now, I know you do: I understand the place you're in, but you have an advantage over me in this instance. When the bishop first helped me, I saw the light, but was unsure if I could reach it," Valjean continues. "You have already been in the light, believed in it, you already know who you were before. It is merely a matter of remembering that man, of holding on to him and adapting him to this new life, to this new circumstance. Allowing him to grieve for what he has lost, and allowing that memory to drive him forward. You are most certainly a fighter, Enjolras, you will always find a battle, but you do not fight simply to make a war, you do so to forge a better world."

To Valjean's delight, Enjolras smiles. It is a smile drenched with melancholy, but it is a smile nonetheless.

"Our friend Prouvaire would have loved that," Enjolras says, and Valjean recalls the young man with the reddish blonde hair, the smiling light brown eyes, words of poetry written across them, the young man who fell as they escaped, that light still in his eyes even in death.

"You boys are some of the most impressive young men I've yet come across," Valjean says, removing his hands from Enjolras' shoulder and folding them back into his lap. "To learn so much, to band together and fight for a cause such as the freedom of an entire nation. It is admirable, and it is utterly selfless."

"People always ask me the exact moment this cause became the flame that lit my heart," Enjolras muses. "And though all of us can recall moments from our childhood, from our adolescence when it dawned on us that there are some very serious cracks in the foundation of our society, it is such a part of me that it almost seems it was always there. I shall never forget when my grandmother handed me Paine's Common Sense when I was twelve or so-she was rather a fan of his-and I read the line 'the state of a king shuts him off from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly' it just made so much sense to me. If I were to choose a single moment, it might be that one."

"You have read a great deal?"

"As much as I could get my hands on, and with my grandmother's American heritage and my mother's not so secret republican sympathies I found it easy to get my hands on things, despite the fact that my father was concerned over my growing political interests," Enjolras replies. "First she gave me Paine, all the writings of the American founding fathers. Then she gave me Rousseau and some Robespierre, Danton, Mirabeau. Combeferre illuminated me on Desmoulins, and I have read everything I could locate that Saint-Just wrote. I saw people suffering, starving, dying, and was given no reason other than 'that is their place in the world.' It never sat right with me."

"As well it should not," Valjean says, remembering his own childhood, his family, working to the bone and still being consistently on the brink of starvation.

He does not believe that it is God's decree at all, but the decree of men too selfish and power-hungry and stuck in the ruts of society to change. God, he believes, is entirely merciful. His mind strays to Cosette as it tends to; if it had been up to society, her lot in life would have simply been 'the way things were' and she would have been trapped and left in a life she'd done nothing to deserve. The thought of her, the juxtaposition of her dirtied, unsmiling face upon their first meeting against her beautiful, sunny smile of the present lifts his heart.

He looks back at Enjolras again, his mind clearly churning with thoughts, but at the very least he looks as if some of his burden has been lifted, and his eyes start falling heavily.

"Bed, I think," Valjean says with a fatherly air, unable to stop himself from brushing a finger against Enjolras' cheek; the boy is strong, he will set the world spinning with his ideas and his passion, he is fierce in battle, Valjean has seen it, but in this moment, he looks so like a tired young boy. "Let me help you get back. Your mother should be getting my letter, tomorrow, I expect, so we shall have to be on the lookout for her reply."

Enjolras nods, allowing Valjean to help him up and resume the same stance they had on the way from Grantaire's room.

"I apologize, monsieur, if my father comes with my mother," Enjolras says, voice saturated with exhaustion, wincing as he takes a bad step on his leg. "I do not know if he will come, but I suspect he might, and he…he will not be pleased with me. I have not seen him in…three years at least."

"We shall face that when it comes," Valjean says, lifting Enjolras up onto the bed, and Enjolras does not fight the gesture. "Sleep, Enjolras."

Enjolras nods again with a mere tilt of his head, and Valjean watches him fall into slumber, pulling the covers up around him, tender with his injuries.

_Like the son I might have known…_


	27. Affairs of the Heart

Les Hommes de la Miséricorde

(Men of Mercy)

A/N: Hello everyone! I heartily apologize for the very long delay in updating and the lack of review answering; I had a family emergency that involved last minute travel and all that sort of thing over the past couple of weeks, so am trying to catch up on life now, including updating this fic! Thank you again for all the wonderful feedback, it is as always so very appreciated, so I hope you enjoy this very long chapter!

Chapter 27: Affairs of the Heart

Javert's heart pounds against his chest when he enters the police station, an entirely foreign effect of such a familiar place. This building represents the law, symbolizes the victory of right over wrong, of clear, unquestioned judgment. It represents a sort of home, if he's rather honest with himself, and Javert has never truly felt at home anywhere else.

Or at least it used to represent these things, but now…now nothing is the same.

During his days as an officer at Toulon this was always the goal: Paris, a highly respected officer of the law, an office within this building. Now it represents everything he feels he is no longer, it is steadfast and solid, it is unwavering in its solemnity and duty, and he feels nothing but irresolute, shaky, hesitant, and these are foreign emotions to him; he vehemently dislikes the turmoil recent events have thrust his mind into. He questions where before he answered with conviction, or perhaps even worse, he cannot answer at all. He cannot understand or justify his own actions, but to think of any other course disquiets him too.

He pauses just beyond the entrance, breathing in and closing his eyes, Images of the extremities of these actions flash in his vision, memories running across his eyes and bursting with explosive pops of panic.

_Enjolras' fiery gaze burning him to cinders and ashes through the jail bars, their darkness and solidity throwing into sharp juxtaposition the boy's delicacy, his paleness, which only serves to make him seem luminescent, ethereal. An angel trapped. A furious angel. _

_His hands forcing the boy's mouth open, pouring the potent drugs down his throat because of his own desperate need for control that rapidly slips through his fingers._

_The knife in his hand, close against Enjolras' skin, the thinnest of barriers between cold, hard steel and hot, vibrant blood. An inch is all takes to take a life, and become the murderer Valjean warned him he'd be._

_Valjean's kind but determined gaze, the barest hint of aggression under the patience, A dichotomy of a man whose haunted him for his entire career, a merciful convict, kind and criminal._

_Valjean's pleading, his words, his bizarre, inherent understanding of Javert himself._

_The feeling of insanity slapping him in the face, his own laughter piercing the quiet outskirts of Avignon, beneath the sky that is the same color as Enjolras' cloudy, drugged eyes, those eyes that haunt him each passing day with the knowledge that he'd put that expression there, that he'd quelled that fire. But he also hates that he feels guilty. _

He shakes his head, straightening his jacket and walking forward; he is a consummate professional, and no matter how shattered, how utterly out of control he feels on the inside, he will not let it show on the outside.

He never has.

Despite his strength of mind, images of Enjolras at the barricade come to his mind unbidden. Javert himself had been bound, strung from a post, and the boy has asked him if he wanted anything, he remembers Enjolras himself carefully helping him to take a drink of water because his hands were chained, gentle as he tipped water into his mouth, respecting his prisoner, the spy who threatened to compromise the whole barricade, the spy he'd already sentenced to death.

He did not show Enjolras such respect.

Then, oddly juxtaposed with this, Javert recalls Enjolras' expression as he'd signed him over to Valjean's mercy, in full belief Valjean would kill him. Even then he'd shown all of the fierceness of a warrior, the suppressed guilt of a boy who knows that killing is wrong, the burden of a young man who knew that death was an inevitable part of giving life to his country, to its people, even if he hated it, even if it rent him apart.

In that moment Javert feared a man that compared to himself was a child still: and Javert was not accustomed to fearing anyone.

Was that why he'd nearly killed Enjolras? Because he'd feared not only his actions, but everything he represented?

_The boy killed, too_, the voice reminds him. _You saw him_.

Yes, he argues back, but though Enjolras' treasonous actions were against Javert's own idea of right and wrong, Enjolras killed for reasons far more justified than Javert's own had been when he threatened Enjolras' life twice in as many days. Enjolras had killed in what was essentially a battle, in the confines of a barricade; Javert had nearly killed him when Enjolras himself wasn't fighting, wasn't resisting, had nearly killed him when he knew that the boy's death belonged to the law alone, to the king, to the court.

Javert hates himself for thinking Enjolras' actions more justified than his own, but he cannot banish the thought, not now.

Killing is against human nature, and yet there are so many situations where people's hands are forced.

But Javert knows nothing forced him to put that knife to Enjolras' neck, and deep in the back of his mind he knows Valjean, not his own self-will, stopped him from killing Enjolras.

In that moment, Javert feared a man that compared to himself was a child still: and Javert was not accustomed to fearing anyone.

_Why did you let the boy go? Why did you let Valjean convince you?_

Because it was right. It was merciful.

He nearly spits the word.

_The boy is dangerous._

The boy might just do some good.

"Inspector Javert."

"Inspector Javert."

Javert blinks. Present day and place swarm into focus.

"Inspector Javert," Betrand says a third time, scampering up to him and looking nervous. "You've returned. Is everything quite all right? Are you…I mean..."

"Everything is fine, Bertrand," Javert says, tone crisp. "Is the Prefect in?"

"He is," Bertrand answers, surveying Javert with concern, but there's also a sense of uncertain anxiety emanating off him.

"What is it, Betrand?" Javert asks, polite, but quickly losing his thin layer of patience.

"I…nothing monsieur," Bertrand says, still nervous. "He's been waiting for you, so just knock."

Javert nods at him then turns to go, rapping firmly on the Prefect's office door with a sense of surety he doesn't feel.

"Come in."

Prefect Gerard looks up when Javert enters, eyebrows furrowing as his lips curve downward in a slight frown, but his tone is friendly.

"Inspector Javert," he says, gesturing at the chair across from him. "Do sit down."

Javert does, his uneasiness doubled by the Prefect's stilted air.

"We received your letter just yesterday, but it contained no details of what occurred while you were in Avignon," he says with an even tone, slow and deliberate. "Would you care to…inform me?"

Javert reaches into his pocket, pulling out the small bag containing Enjolras' handkerchief, tossing it onto the desk

'"_Javert…"_

"_Do not."_

"_I need to hear you say you understand me, boy."_

"I found Enjolras in an inn in Avignon," Javert says, the lie tasting virulent on his tongue. "There was no sign of the Fauchelevent man who apparently rescued him from the barricade. His comrades put up some resistance, but I arrested him and held him in a small prison just outside Avignon for the night."

"And where is he now?" Prefect Gerard asks, his voice rising an octave on the last word, but he's still calm.

"Dead," Javert says. "He attempted to escape when I was taking him from the jail to begin the journey here, he attacked me and I was forced to shoot. Given his attack, a non-fatal shot was near impossible; the boy was much stronger than he appeared, skilled in combat."

The Prefect examines the splatters of crimson against the white handkerchief, fingers running over the red embroidered 'R. Enjolras' along the edge.

"Where did the bullet hit?"

"His heart," Javert answers instantly, sounding believable even to himself. "I pulled this from the breast pocket of his coat."

"And you've brought the body?"

Javert regards the Prefect with a coolness he does not feel. He is not accustomed to lying.

"You expected me to bring a corpse on a week and a half long journey across France in midsummer?" Javert asks, more petulant that he intended, voice cool with annoyance. "It would have begun decomposing. Particularly in this wretched heat."

"Hmmm. You make a solid point," the Prefect responds. "What has become of it then?"

"I left it with the local police for his family to come and claim. They live in Marseilles, only a few days journey away. The boy's father is of French aristocratic blood and his mother the daughter of a wealthy American heiress and a French general, and they were likely to make a great ruckus if the boy is not interred in their own mausoleum," Javert replies, hands clenching in his lap as he spits out lie after lie. "If they do not come quickly, he will be buried in an unmarked grave as is befitting any such treasonous scum, no matter his bloodline."

"This is not the way we'd hoped this case would end," Prefect Gerard remarks, storing the bloodied handkerchief back into the small bag Javert hands him and storing it in his desk. "His majesty and his advisors were keen on putting the boy on trial, on making an example of him. There's talk of commuting Charles Jeanne's sentence from death to life in prison because of public anger-we do not need a mob-so the king will be angry about this. There had been discussions in your absence, of interrogating Enjolras for information and staining his image in the eyes of the people. So that executing him would have been a victory for the king, a message to the people that they should trust him and not some rebellious republican fools."

"Surely…"

"Now it will only be seen as a power struggle on the part of the police," Prefect Gerard says, interrupting. "Yet another young man killed by the hand of a royalist lackey, yet another abuse of authority. A martyr made, which I'm sure is what they all wanted. The people of Paris were not ready to rise when those rebels called, but they are most furious now, and Louis-Phillipe and his supporters in the nobility do not wish to further inspire that, do not wish to inspire the sans-culottes, to arouse any revolutionary sensibilities among any secret republicans in the Chamber of Deputies."

"I did my duty," Javert says, angry at the continual lies he's telling, but also at the insult he feels in his superior's words. "I will fill out the paperwork, go before the king and the Chamber myself…"

"You have been an excellent officer for many years Javert," the Prefect responds, folding his hands on his desk. "But you have not been yourself as of late, have been on edge, particularly during this case. Perhaps the air in Paris has put you in bad humors, perhaps you are simply exhausted from all your years of service, but I think that it may be time for you to retire. For your health."

Javert feels as if someone sent both their fists flying at lightning speed into his stomach, and for a moment all the breath leaves him. He clears his throat, desperate to remain calm until his air returns. The Prefect is not forcing retirement on him for worry over his health: he forces retirement on him because in his eyes, he has embarrassed the force.

Though, Javert supposes, if he knew the truth Javert would be in prison himself.

Perhaps that is what he deserves.

But perhaps not.

The same question haunts, the same song, merely a different verse.

"Monsieur Prefect," Javert tries, holding back that oh so familiar voice, that voice that mere days ago was encouraging him to show mercy and turns on him as soon as the opportunity strikes.

_You deserve this._

_You let the boy go._

_You let Valjean go._

"I assure you I am most able to keep working," Javert continues. "I very seriously doubt this case would have turned out any differently; Enjolras was a reckless boy, and he met the fate that he was surely destined for."

"The king would have preferred to set that destiny himself," his superior says firmly. "You have done exceedingly successful work for many years, inspector, but is it not best to retire when we are at our best rather than faltering into mediocrity? It is not an insult, Javert. But nor is it a suggestion."

It _is_ an insult, Javert thinks, lips pursing, but he cannot argue with this man or risk losing the retirement pension he needs to survive if he's being forced into this. He might be a frugal man, but there is not enough to survive forever on the funds he's put aside, unless he decides once more to return to the bridge.

But something tells him that solution is long past. Neither wrong, nor right, all actions do not sit well within his breast but the bridge is a solution long past; cowardice he has not the bravery to take.

"I shall give you a month's time to complete the paperwork on your cases and pass on open ones to other officers. I also would like the paperwork for this case in particular on my desk by tomorrow morning. We will discuss the needed documents for your pension."

He rises from his chair, a sign it is time for Javert to go, and in that moment, the self-satisfied look on the man's face washes away all respect Javert ever had for him. Javert inclines his head in the barest of nods as response before leaving the office.

The station is silent, as if everyone present was attempting to listen in on his conversation with the Prefect, and Javert ignores their silence, ignores Betrand's voice piercing through it, the blood pounding so fiercely behind his eyes so that all he sees is red.

* * *

Seven days after Enjolras' return home, Combeferre knocks on Grantaire's door, listening closely for a response. There's a garbled, weary "come in" and Combeferre enters, offering a smile to his ill friend.

"You are ever the early bird," Grantaire remarks, sitting up in bed, shifting to rest against the pillows.

"Did I wake you?" Combeferre asks. "I had hoped not to…"

"No," Grantaire says with a shake of his head, eyes far less bloodshot than in previous days. "I slept rather restlessly and awoke about half an hour ago."

"I'm hoping that a sound sleep will return to you here in the next few days," Combeferre replies, reaching up a hand to feel Grantaire's forehead with the back of his palm, relieved when Grantaire doesn't flinch; his horrific hallucinations made him jumpy, and Combeferre's glad to see that side-effect subsides. And if need be I can give you a small dose of Laudanum to help with sleep. Hmm. Your fever's nearly vanished; you're just a tad warm still. How are you feeling?"

"Better than I have," Grantaire admits, running a hand through untamable curls. "Though honestly still rather like horse shit, if you want the entire truth."

"I do," Combeferre says, sitting hesitantly on the edge of Grantaire's bed. "But you are doing so very admirably, Grantaire. There is no way to eradicate alcohol entirely from your life, not with the questionable nature of water in some areas of France, but I think if you abstain from hard liquor, just drink wine when this process is complete, it will be much easier to maintain." Combeferre pauses, eyes on Grantaire's expression which borders on his usual disbelief. He presses Grantaire's hand as he would with Enjolras or Courfeyrac and perseveres. "This is no small thing you've attempted, my friend, and it is very much courageous. This is of course the hardest part, but it will always be a struggle, but I believe in you. We all believe in you."

Grantaire meets Combeferre's eyes for a moment and then looks away. Combeferre's stomach sinks; he desires Grantaire to know how proud they all are of him, but he can only say the words so many times. It is up to Grantaire whether or not they sink in entirely, a choice that Combeferre, that Courfeyrac, that Feuilly or Marius cannot make for him, a choice that even Enjolras cannot make for him.

"Has Enjolras awoken?" Grantaire asks.

"Not yet," Combeferre says, frowning slightly, stomach sinking further at the mention of Enjolras rather than uplifting sensation he normally relates to his friend, the ball of worry growing exponentially by the day. Enjolras is often a cause for concern to Combeferre, even prior to the barricade; he worked too much, ate and slept too little, but Enjolras' current state has unearthed a new, deeper, foreign level of concern. "He's," Combeferre pauses again, thinking over his wording "…been sleeping rather late recently; not surprising of course, it _will_ pass but…well…he has a long convalescence ahead of him, on more than one level.""

"And how many times _has_ he been out of bed?" Grantaire presses.

"Well, I put him on bed rest for the first four days," Combeferre says, curious as to where this is leading. "This is only the third day since I said we could try letting him sit downstairs for short periods."

"But to my knowledge he has not asked to do so."

"No. No he has not," Combeferre says, worry pinching at his forehead. "But I'm giving him some time; we have all been through a great deal of trauma, and Enjolras through even more, both physically and emotionally. May I ask if you're getting at something?"

"He's depressive," Grantaire says, point blank, a departure from the usual verbosity he often disguises his opinions in. "I know of what I speak, Combeferre. On what previous occasion has Enjolras been so pleasant a patient when he's been ill?"

This is not a new thought for Combeferre to entertain this week at all, he finds his memory often reflecting on previous incidences and almost ruefully longing for a sharp word or spark of irritation from Enjolras at his continued incapacitation.

"This is something different, Grantaire. He's understandably upset, he's been shot, overdosed, faces a life as a fugitive, for heaven's sake. And his experience in the jail was horrific, he worries for us all, blames himself," Combeferre says, massaging circles into the side of his head as he speaks. "This is all to be expected, and it's why he's not himself. It's why I want to give him some time to sort it out before leaping to conclusions. If he is depressed, in this situation it is still unsurprising, but we will help him work through it."

"I am all for giving him time to recover himself, he certainly deserves that," Grantaire says, and he looks up at Combeferre, holding the gaze this time. "But I fear him never doing so, I fear it Combeferre. When men like Enjolras fly, they fly as high as Icarus himself, but when they fall…" Grantaire doesn't finish, his head falling into his hands, fingers twisting through his hair.

"Grantaire," Combeferre says, covering his friend's hand with his own as he so often does when Enjolras is distressed, a gesture that almost always instantly calms. "No matter if Enjolras is depressed, traumatized, upset, whatever is happening, I know he will come back to us. Slightly changed perhaps, but still Enjolras. Of that I can assure you. He only needs time, our love, our support, our belief. He needs that more than ever. If he weren't severely out of sorts, I'd be even more concerned."

Grantaire nods, but speaks again, voice slightly muffled. "Yes, but you musn't let him slip through time's cracks, Combeferre. None of us should. You know Enjolras well enough to know that he is a man of action; he needs it, requires it. You know as well as anyone that Enjolras, even a traumatized, depressed Enjolras, needs a goal, an activity through which he can channel his emotions. I just…I only…his light is so bright I cannot bear to see…"

"Shhh," Combeferre says, squeezing Grantaire's shoulder. "We will all figure this out. Together. As Jehan might say, we will feel the entire spectrum of our emotions and emerge out the other side, renewed. Cracked for certain, but reinvigorated."

"You are so certain," Grantaire whispers, the pain in his voice entering Combeferre's own heart and squeezing. "How are all of you always so _certain_?"

"Because, in my own mind at least, it is far better to hope, to fight, to try for the light than simply allow darkness to forever hold sway," Combeferre says, a melancholy smile alighting on his lips. "Darkness comes as night falls, but does not the sun always rise?"

"You sound like Enjolras," Grantaire says, and there's the tiniest light in his eyes.

Combeferre feels his heart lift slightly.

"Enjolras and I bonded over words such as these," Combeferre adds. "It's probably not a surprise that his have become mine and mine his. Melded together by glue, as Bossuet once said."

Grantaire's eyes flicker away again at the mention of Bossuet, and Combeferre feels as if he's lost his friend against somewhere in the sea of his withdrawal, of his skepticism, of the demons still playing in his mind, even if they do not visibly present themselves. They claw at him, dousing the light that Combeferre senses burgeoned in Grantaire's soul the day he met Enjolras, the day he cemented his friendship with all of them. The light is there, Combeferre's certain of that, but this constant push and pull of Grantaire's own making prevents it from shining, prevents Grantaire from allowing it to take root and fill him up. It's grown brighter, that tiny flame, it only needs a spark.

But Enjolras' temporarily dimmed light, the light that floods everything and clears the path to the future, directly connects to Grantaire's soul in a way Combeferre cannot fully comprehend just yet. It is beautiful and frightening all at once, and he thinks that if he saw belief roar to life in Grantaire, that if he saw that belief joined with Enjolras' own, that it might truly be something to behold, given both of their rather intense, explosive personalities. Enjolras had said before that he believed Grantaire had a spark to add to their fire, if only he would realize that fact, realize his own worth. But communication between Enjolras and Grantaire has never been an easy thing, though Combeferre's been pleased to see it much improved since the barricade. But they are connected, that much has always been clear to Combeferre.

"I know how close you were with Bossuet and Joly," Combeferre says, soft and understanding. "How much time you spent with them. Actually I've been thinking of writing Musichetta, I only worry for revealing that Enjolras is alive if the wrong person opens the post, but I'm sure I could figure a way to tell her, she's a very clever woman. It's…it's all right to talk about it, Grantaire. To openly grieve them. We all miss them. Terribly."

"It hurts to speak of them," Grantaire says, voice hoarse. "Of any of them."

"I know," Combeferre says. "I know. But it also heals, or so I've found. Slowly, of course, and part of it will always hurt. But talking of them still makes me smile as well. They are a part of us."

Grantaire nods, looking at him before looking away again.

"Are you up to eating this morning?" Combeferre asks. "You really should, you haven't been able to sustain much recently, and it would do your body good."

"I think I might be able," Grantaire says, reaching for his dressing gown and pulling it on. He stops half way through and places a hand on Combeferre's arm. "Thank you. For everything, Combeferre. I'd be rather in a worse place with this were it not for you."

"Any time, my friend," Combeferre replies. "Any time."

"Combeferre," Grantaire says, turning around once more in the door way as they leave the room. "Think on what I said. About Enjolras."

Combeferre smiles thinly, the now familiar and disdained sickness in his belly looming again as the thought itself rears at Grantaire's words. But he nods and holds the door for Grantaire, still shaky on his feet, but steady enough to venture downstairs.

They breakfast with Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Marius, Cosette, Gavroche, and Valjean, Enjolras' absence a near tangible sensation among them. After the tea has been finished the conversation devolved from pleasantries into plans for the day Combeferre politely excuses himself, the urge to check on Enjolras now uncomfortably pressing. He catches Courfeyrac's eyes as he exits, and Courfeyrac nods, knowing just where he's going. He reaches Enjolras' door and knocks, hearing a very soft assent to enter.

"Good morning," Combeferre says.

Enjolras is sitting up in bed, his knees drawn up beneath the sheets, staring pensively into space.

"Did you just awake? We were all eating breakfast and rather missed your presence."

"About twenty minutes ago, perhaps?" Enjolras says softly, eyes flicking up toward the clock, lips quirking into a melancholy half smile at Combeferre's presence.

Combeferre makes to sit in the chair next to the bed, but at seeing Enjolras' eyes wide with a foreign sort of desperation, just on the edge of panic, Combeferre elects for sitting on the bed, and at the tug of Enjolras' hand, sits back against the pillows, stretching his legs out fully. Their shoulders just touch, and Enjolras shifts almost imperceptibly to lean slightly against Combeferre.

"Grantaire's doing better today," Combeferre says by way of making conversation. He's used to exceedingly comfortable silences with Enjolras, but this is not the same, this feels dreadfully wrong. "And Feuilly's helping Gavroche choose some children's titles from the library for when you start teaching him to read, when you're better. He's quite set on it being you, it seems. Courfeyrac was buttering up Madame Bellard and Touissant into extra breakfast pastries as usual." Combeferre takes Enjolras hand in his, linking their fingers and examining them. "Might you feel like coming downstairs for a bit today? I think it would be good for you."

Enjolras looks at him, and the expression in his eyes internally startles Combeferre; he sees the fire there, sees the blue light, but both are shrouded by darker shades of blue-grey, encased in pure sadness mixed with webs of hazy frustration. He looks…lost.

And Enjolras never looks lost.

Momentarily doubtful of a decision, perhaps, but even that is rare.

Combeferre knows this reaction is normal, is expected, but he wants to know what exactly this is, specifically, so he can help Enjolras through it. The emotions, the mind, the effects of trauma, the psychology of it is studied so little currently that medically speaking he has only a small amount to go on, and will have to trust that, will have to trust his instincts, trust his heart. This is a grey area to which Combeferre wishes there was a black and white answer.

"I don't know that I feel up to it today," Enjolras answers, a variation on the same theme of answers that he's given for the two previous days. "I…I am sorry Combeferre." True sorrow, a very authentic apology injects Enjolras' words.

"Still not feeling well?" Combeferre asks gently, and falls back on the familiar gesture of feeling Enjolras' forehead thereby giving Enjolras an out, a physical excuse if he's not yet ready to talk. "A tad warm yet, just like Grantaire."

Enjolras smiles wanly. "No, a little weak and shaky, perhaps but better than I have. The pain's still there of course, but that's there wherever I go…I just…I'm not…"

"It's quite all right," Combeferre says, brushing a stray blonde hair out of Enjolras' eyes with his free hand, as Enjolras hasn't let go of the other.

"I must say, I never thought I'd see the day when you wanted to stay in bed." Combeferre says with a smile and an attempt at humour. "There have been times Joly and I would have sold a left arm each to keep you in bed."

Enjolras half smiles again, but at the mention of Joly his entire air becomes saturated with melancholy, and he says nothing.

Combeferre feels his smile drop and the strange silence resumes. "This isn't a pressured question, not at all, I'd only like to know…to help, if I can but might you tell me why you don't want to go downstairs?"

"I am not myself," Enjolras says, eyes staring ahead at something that no doubt resides within his mind, and for once, Combeferre cannot read it. "I feel…almost numb, and I am not used to that…lack of sensation. And yet sometimes I am so overcome with sorrow I can scarcely breathe…I will certainly not make good company until I sort myself out."

"Enjolras," Combeferre breathes. "Everyone loves your company, no matter what sort of state you're in."

"Yes perhaps," Enjolras says, focusing back on Combeferre. "But I do not wish to inflict it upon them. Will you stay for a bit? I do not mean to take over your morning, I merely…your company…"

"Yes," Combeferre says, gently ceasing Enjolras' ramble. "Yes. I quite forgot when I came in, but Valjean received a response from your mother, and she and your grandmother will be here in three days."

"My grandmother?" Enjolras asks, a smidge of tone returning.

"You love your grandmother," Combeferre says, bewildered at the reaction. he remembers meeting Enjolras' grandmother, a charming woman much like Flora, albeit a bit louder, and utterly devoted to her grandson. Enjolras was extraordinarily fond of her, particularly at a time when relations with his father were so fractious on account of Enjolras' growing political thinking and Violet, an American heiress much more sympathetic to Enjolras' growing revolutionary zeal.

"Yes, I do," Enjolras agrees. And finally, there is something akin to a true smile on Enjolras lips, as he gestures at his leg. "There'll be a Joly-esque scale of fussing when she sees me like this. Whenever…" He trails off, shaking his head. "I only know she's quite…overbearing at times. But I…I shall be pleased to see them."

The tiniest glimmer of a smile disappears under the melancholy once more and Combeferre has to suppress a sigh and satisfy himself with the warm, solidity of Enjolras pressed to his side as Grantaire's words flash in his head:

_When men like Enjolras fly, they fly as high as Icarus himself, but when they fall…_

Enjolras might have hit the ground hard, Combeferre tells himself, but that fire, that light, Combeferre knows it's still there, can sense it sure as he feels the warmth of his friends skin and the gleam in his eyes. Enjolras is as human as any of them, he thinks immensely, he feels so deeply it hurts him sometimes, gets angry, makes mistakes, fears, smiles, cries. The only difference is that he's better at hiding it most of the time, better at compartmentalizing until he's in the right time and place. Enjolras wavers between heaven and earth, all the qualities of an angel attributed to a still very human being, and Combeferre will shine that halo again, wipe away the dirt and the soil, leaving the dents as reminders, and give it back to Enjolras shining as good as new. Enjolras will help that process along himself, Combeferre knows, because Enjolras is the single most determined, resilient person he knows.

But if only he knew _how_ to do this.

* * *

When Marius takes her hand as they stroll along the Rhone River in Avignon, Cosette feels herself relax. She's had many homes in her life; one hated inn, one cloistered convent, several reclusive homes with just her Papa and Toussaint, and now this new ancestral mansion with a gaggle of what are starting to feel very much like several older brothers and one younger one, but none quite so comforting as the one she feels in Marius' presence. She'd been hesitant to go out today, given the state of both Enjolras and Grantaire, but Courfeyrac reassured her that both would encourage them to go, and when she'd brought Grantaire dinner last night under the guise of checking on him, he'd told her with a ghost of a wry smile that he would start drinking liquor again if she didn't go.

"Something on your mind, darling?" Marius asks, no longer shy with terms of endearment as he'd been at first. "There's a distance in your eyes."

"Nothing new, particularly," she says, looking over and squeezing his hand. "I only worry for Enjolras, for Grantaire, I feel like Papa is unsettled recently, since the encounter with Inspector Javert, and yet despite everything, he also seems content with so many young people in the house. I think he feels purposeful, with all of us. It is like having the large family we both missed out on."

"I agree about your father," Marius replies, grinning wide. "He looks younger, I think, than when I first met him, which seems odd given everything that's happened, but you're right, I think it gives him purpose, keeps the life pumping through him." Marius' smile turns downward, morphing into a frown. "But yes, I worry about Enjolras too, and Grantaire. But I trust that they'll be all right, in the end. Enjolras is… he is an incredibly resilient person, and if I know him as I think I do, eventually this will only serve to lend him more strength than he already has. Survival of such horrible events tends to do that sometimes," he says, looking meaningfully at Cosette, the statement as true in her case as in Enjolras' "And Grantaire…I have never seen Grantaire so determined about anything before. There are mountains ahead, but I have faith that they, that we all, can climb them."

"You are ever poetic," Cosette says, bridging the small space between them, shoulders brushing. "I adore it."

"Prouvaire was the one who encouraged me," Marius says, a small blush coloring his cheeks. "I have thought…I have thought I might start writing poetry again, in his memory."

"A splendid idea! I feel I would have loved Jehan, from the way you talk of him. In fact I rather feel I would have loved all of them dearly, with the stories all of you tell, I feel as if I knew them myself," Cosette says, stopping as Marius' steps cease. "Where are we, Marius?"

Marius' blush deepens.

"I searched Avignon shortly after we arrived because I remembered this park from visits in my childhood," Marius admits. "I rather thought it resembled the Luxemborg Gardens, where I first laid eyes on you."

Warmth of memory fills Cosette to the tips of her fingers and toes as she surveys the park, looking back at Marius again and planting a kiss on his lips before pulling back with a grin.

_Does he know I'm alive, do I know if he's real? Does he see what I see, does he feel what I feel?_

"Shall we walk a little further?" he asks. "There's a rather lovely spot just down the way."

Cosette nods, and they walk in contented, comfortable, silence. They come to a halt in front of the largest tree in the park, and it envelopes them in the arms of its shade.

And then quite suddenly, Marius is on one knee.

"Marius," Cosette says, putting one hand to her chest as Marius takes the other. "What…"

"I had an entire speech planned that has completely vanished from my mind," Marius says, suddenly breathless. "And Courfeyrac, he told me I wasn't allowed to bring notes. But Cosette, you…your light, your beautiful, warm, light lit up a life I didn't know was so grey until I saw you. And suddenly, Cosette, I was alive again, truly, really alive. You have shown me who I am, given me confidence in that man, and I love you more than I it possible to love anyone." He pauses, and Cosette feels happy tears springing to her eyes, offering out her other hand for Marius to take after he fishes a small box out of his pocket. "All of that being said, Cosette Fauchelevent, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" Cosette exclaims, quite unable to stop from throwing her arms around Marius even though he's on the grass. "Yes!"

Marius gathers her in his arms, chuckling softly at first until it grows into full-blown laughter, echoing against the clear blue sky. They both stand up straight after a moment, and Marius takes her hand again, slipping a breathtaking diamond ring with clusters of pearls around the edges onto her finger, and Cosette thinks she's never seen something so stunning in her life. It fits perfectly.

"My mother's," Marius says, tears pooling in his own eyes now. "My grandfather gave it to me just when we left Paris. And just in case you were curious, I asked your father for his permission to marry you a few weeks ago, I was merely delayed asking because of everything that's happened. I wanted it to be…"

"The right moment," she finishes for him, resting her forehead against his. "I'm so pleased you asked him, I know it meant a great deal. Of course I do not think he would have denied us, but I know he appreciates that type of gesture."

"I know how much you mean to each other," Marius says, interlacing their fingers together. "It only seemed right."

"Yes," Cosette whispers, filled at the same time with overwhelming love for her father, and the dull ache of missing the mother she never really knew, the mother she wishes was here to share the news with, a mother to help her select the best possible gown. "Yes it does. I love you, Marius."

"And I you."

They stand there like that for a few moments, heads together, fingers intertwined, basking in the summer sunshine.

"We must go tell everyone!" Cosette proclaims, tugging on Marius' hand and back toward the street where the carriage waits. "They will be so be so excited!"

She pulls him along, and Marius follows, amused, joyous laughter bursting from his lips once more.

* * *

Feuilly closes the door behind him as he leaves Enjolras' room, a heavy sigh deflating his chest. Courfeyrac leans against the bannister at the top of the stairs and turns when he hears Feuilly's exhale of breath.

"He still doesn't want to come downstairs?"

Feuilly shakes his head. "I didn't even ask. He just seemed so...defeated. It's unnerving…I've…I've never seen him like this, or anywhere close."

Courfeyrac clasps his shoulder. "He will overcome it. We must persevere, give him every chance to come back to us. If he needs time and space, then he shall have it, and when he needs our entertainment and closeness, he shall have that too. Enjolras is a complex man, but I know him well. As well as I know myself. Better, even."

Feuilly grins. "You are wise as ever, Courfeyrac."

"People really ought to listen to me more often." Courfeyrac announces, steering Feuilly towards the stairs.

"Is that so?"

"Indeed. Now, if you choose to listen again, you might discover the hiding place of the extra pastries left over this morning." Courfeyrac says, slinging an arm around Feuilly's shoulders as they head downstairs.

"That is because you hid them there, Courfeyrac."

"Lies and slander!" He cries, hand clasped over his heart.

Feuilly pushes his shoulder, much cheered by Courfeyrac's antics, but still catches the other man's glance to the closed door just visible at the top of the stairs.

Tea and pastries in the afternoon is a luxury Feuilly decides he could well get, and probably has already gotten, used to, though he has to admit, even if only to himself just yet, that he feels the need to work, to contribute to the household financially, even though he knows it is not needed, it is what he is accustomed to. He is in the process of teasing Courfeyrac about the belly he might develop if he continues filching extra pastries every morning, to Courfeyrac's affronted indignation, when there is great clattering of running feet in the hallway and a great deal of delighted laughter.

Marius and Cosette burst into the room, glancing at the two of them, the tiniest pause in their breathless laughter at the continued absence of Enjolras before seizing each other and kissing chastely as ever.

Courfeyrac catches on immediately. "You've done it?" He asks, as if there is any question. "You marvelous boy, you have done it!" He looks to Cosette, the hand she has stretched in front of her before, ring glittering from her finger, before seizing Marius in a fierce embrace.

"Marius proposed." Cosette says to Feuilly, who is grinning widely; their delight infectious.

"All my congratulations." He says, and kisses Cosette's cheeks before setting about trying to peel Courfeyrac away from Marius. "Do not accidentally throttle the man in your gusto before he makes it up the aisle, all right?"

"You sound ever like Combeferre," Courfeyrac shoots back, a bright, starry smile lighting up his entire face, relinquishing Marius and seizing Cosette's hands instead, hardly able to restrain his own joy.

"Well, someone should, as he's out walking the grounds with Gavroche and cannot be here to stand for himself," Feuilly says, reaching out to shake Marius' hand. But he pumps Marius' hand in an enthusiastic hand shake himself, nonetheless.

"You fine fellow, you did it. You listened to me and I love it when people listen to me, you know. Everyone should, really." Courfeyrac says, turning to Marius again to ruffle his hair. Marius groans audibly but still smiles.

"Where is that scoundrel, Grantaire?" Courfeyrac asks. "This calls for a celebration! I assume your father is in the kitchen beside himself trying to figure out what to do, Cosette?"

"He did say he wanted to have a special meal," she says, smiling still yet wider.

"Well then I shall go assist him," Courfeyrac says. "And go see about Grantaire."

"He's sleeping…" Feuilly tries, but Courfeyrac's already out the door. "He is impossible sometimes." Feuilly sighs, but there's an affectionate smirk on his lips.

"Incorrigible," Cosette agrees, fond. "And Enjolras, is he..."

Feuilly gives her a thin smile. "Abed yet. But he will be delighted, Cosette, you must tell him at once." He says, a truer smile breaking over his features once more, unable to hold it back.

* * *

Enjolras is reading a book Feuilly brought him from the Gillenormand library when he'd brought Enjolras lunch to his room. Enjolras' eyes stray from the words on the page as he thinks about the moment Feuilly had stood by the edge of the bed, passed the book to Enjolras with relish, excitement over its contents palpable in the way he'd gesticulated with his hands and chattered; Feuilly, as a general rule, doesn't chatter and that was telling in itself. He'd hesistated after setting down the tray, hoping for an indication from Enjolras to stay, to talk as they hadn't in so long, but it didn't come and Feuilly had given Enjolras a smile and left.

Enjolras, for his part, had closed his eyes as the door closed, guilt washing over him. He wants to be himself again, wants to sit in the library and talk until the small hours of the morning with Feuilly as they used to, he wants to get out of bed, but he cannot bring himself to do it.

The book is fascinating, and for a few moments at a time grants him a reprieve from the sadness which has a hold of his heart, the swells of guilt which crush him whenever he thinks of his departed friends. It doesn't take much to bring them to mind, a word, a phrase, another thought, the shadow the curtains cast over his legs, it all brings their faces, their deaths to the fore of his mind, sharp, acrid and painful.

He is lost, staring into the middle distance when the sound of feet running up the stairs snaps him back to his room, dispelling the gun shots in his ears, the tang of smoke in his nose and throat and the red of a hundred wounds against white shirts in his eye.

"Cosette, he might be sleeping," Marius chides, but his gleeful, delighted voice is far from Marius' usual dreamy, shy tones.

"Nonsense!" she exclaims.

"We should knock at the very least."

"Oh, all right then," she says, and Enjolras hears the rap at the door. "Enjolras?" Cosette calls. "Might we come in?"

Enjolras calls his permission to enter and Cosette nearly bursts through the door, eyes shining with utter joy.

"I cannot even play games and make you guess," she says. She puts her hand out to Enjolras, and he sees the ring Marius showed them weeks ago, the ring once belonging to his long deceased mother, handed down to him by his grandfather after all these years to propose to Cosette. "Marius proposed! Can you imagine?"

For a long moment Enjolras can only stare at the gems on her fingers, then glance at each of them in turn, their happiness and joy filling the room with light and banishing some of his melancholy. Almost unbidden, a true, wide smile graces his face and he says "Congratulations."

The pair of them tremble with excitement from where they stand, and he almost feels a ghost of laughter rise in his throat.

"Might I be permitted to kiss the hand of the bride to be?" Enjolras asks Cosette, feeling a smile pull at his own lips, the first real smile he's felt in days.

"Why of course you may, citizen," Cosette says with a tiny curtsy, holding her hand out again as Enjolras presses his lips lightly against it.

"Citizen?" Enjolras asks, curious.

"Combeferre was telling me that's the world republicans use to address people as a term of equality," Cosette says, blushing slightly, excited fervor in her eyes. "I thought I'd try it out on you first."

"You wear it well," Enjolras says. "The word and the ring. Congratulations to the two of you, truly." He accepts Marius' hand when he puts it out, squeezing it.

Enjolras feels a chink of light cast into the darkness surrounding his heart as of late just by virtue of Cosette's smile, of the sparkle in Marius' eyes when he looks back at his intended.

Marius, a shy, quiet, but extremely intelligent orphan who'd had the wherewithal to leave the only family he'd ever known, his grandfather, because of his political beliefs, who refused to take anything other than money he earned himself and lived in one of the poorest parts of Paris, who came to join them, changing his Bonapartist beliefs once he came into their fold through Courfeyrac. Cosette, a young woman who had experienced so much heartache in her childhood, whose father abandoned her and whose mother was forced to leave her with the terrible Thenardier couple who abused her, half-starved her until she was rescued by Valjean. These two lonely souls coming together despite differences in class, in past, in circumstance, in birth, evaporates a fraction of the heaviness sitting like an anvil on Enjolras' chest; it might not be battle, and it might not be a barricade, but this union is a future beauty existing in the present, and if they are blessed with children, those children will grow up in the lessons of their parents, will not be subject to the societal norms which they all fight so hard against.

"Might you come downstairs and celebrate with us, Enjolras?" Marius asks, tentative but hopeful. "If you're feeling able?"

"We'd so love to have you," Cosette adds, voice tempered with an understanding Enjolras appreciates; if he doesn't come, she won't be angry, but they both hope he will. "It wouldn't feel complete without you, after all. And even just a few minutes would be lovely."

Enjolras finds he cannot refuse them.

"I think I can manage it for a little while," he says, sitting up further against the pillows. "I would be pleased to join you. Might you send Combeferre up to me when Feuilly finds him? Or Courfeyrac? And then I'll be right down."

"Certainly," Marius says. "We'll send one or both of them straight up."

Cosette squeezes his hand, following Marius out the door and leaving Enjolras alone for a moment. He releases a breath as they leave, resting his head in his hands, heart racing visibly beneath the skin of his chest.

_You can do this_, he tells himself. _These are your friends, your dearest, dearest friends. They will not begrudge you your abnormal behavior, not given all you've experienced. _

A few long minutes pass and he hears the door open, looking up to find not only Combeferre, but Courfeyrac entering; Combeferre approaches, Courfeyrac close behind. Enjolras' breathing quickens; he'd hoped to have calmed by the time someone returned, and yet he feels worse by the second.

"Enjolras," Combeferre whispers. "What…"

"Nothing, nothing, I'm fine," Enjolras says quickly, swallowing back the fluttering, gut-wrenching panic that only makes him want to run, run outside into the fresh air and just _breathe_, but he cannot, he cannot run because he can scarcely walk without assistance right now.

"If you do not want to go downstairs," Combeferre says, sitting down beside him, a hand on his back. "You do not have to do so. Everyone will understand."

"I _do_ want to," Enjolras insists. "I just…I just need a moment, I don't…"

Combeferre runs a knowing, careful hand up and down Enjolras' back and Enjolras' leans into him, hands shaking even as he holds his head in their grasp.

"What is _wrong_ with me?" he chokes out, words biting, jagged, and hoarse.

At this, Courfeyrac strides over, in tune instantly with Enjolras, his emotional intelligence going into overdrive.

"May I?" he asks, holding his hands out to Enjolras.

Enjolras finally looks up again, still leaning into Combeferre, but offers his hands hesitantly out to Courfeyrac, who grasps them warmly within his own.

"If I am correct, and I think I am," Courfeyrac says slowly. "You are experiencing an attack of nerves. Correct, Combeferre? Joly used to experience these did he not? Not quite on this level, but he did."

"Yes," Combeferre says, continuing the movement of his hand on Enjolras' back. "Joly was the most cheerful person, so sometimes it was easy to forget his nerves, but he learned how to cope with them, the mechanisms of doing so, so that when it happened he knew better what to do, but we were all there when he needed us. It is normal, Enjolras, I promise you, given the severity and the horror of what you have been through. If he were here, he would say the same to you."

"In layman's terms, you have not lost your senses, if that's what you fear," Courfeyrac says a lightness in his tone that Enjolras latches onto. "We all experienced the barricade, the loss of our friends, but you, my friend…"

Enjolras feels Combeferre's arm place itself loosely around his shoulders, not too tight in case it makes him feel trapped, and Enjolras closes his eyes, listening to Courfeyrac's words.

"You, my friend," Courfeyrac continues. "Not only do you have that in your mind, but you were also shot twice, you nearly died from infection. We watched you nearly die. And then we watched as you were taken away from us, had to sacrifice yourself to keep the rest of us safe. You watched a woman die in your arms, you were overdosed with a very, very potent drug, you had a knife placed to your neck, could have had your life ripped away once again, in front of us, in front of Feuilly and Grantaire. And then you returned to us, hurting in ways you have _never_ hurt before, in ways we have never seen you hurt before."

Courfeyrac's every word pierces him, stabs him, but they also present the reality of what he's been through, and for some reason that calms him for now, and his breathing slows as he soaks in the presence of these two men who are irremovable parts of his soul. He feels safe, with his hands in Courfeyrac's, Combeferre a warmth at his side and it gives him strength.

"I want to be _myself_," Enjolras says, emphasizing the last word. "I want to fight on, it is everything, it is…"

"You will," Combeferre says, turning Enjolras' face to meet his eyes. "It will require time, my friend, but you will, of that I am sure. But we are here for you, always. Just lean on us, let us be your strength, for a time."

"How _much _time?" Enjolras presses. "I don't want any of you waiting to live your lives because of me, because I am a fugitive, because I must adjust and invent and lie about who I am."

"We must _all_ adjust," Combeferre emphasizes. "To our own circumstances and to yours. Together."

Enjolras nods, feeling his heartbeat slow.

"Would you still like to go downstairs?" Combeferre asks, smiling just a little now.

"Yes," Enjolras says, nodding. "Yes. I want to be there for Marius and Cosette."

"I do say I've never seen Marius smile so much," Courfeyrac says. "I daresay we shall be hearing soon about wedding plans."

It is strange, Enjolras thinks, to see life going on around him when his own feels so stalled, but although it strikes a melancholy chord within him, it also gives him the determination to step out of bed. Combeferre and Courfeyrac, along with his cane, assist him down the stairs, pain shooting through his leg because he cannot yet bear taking the Laudanum, but he makes it, relieved when he hits solid floor. The three of them enter the formal dining room, and Enjolras sees everyone sitting around the table; Feuilly, Grantaire, Marius, Cosette, Gavroche, Valjean.

When they see him, smiles light up all their faces, and just for a moment, a moment he knows is not permanent, his mind, his heart, and his soul, are at rest.


End file.
